Grave Mistake

Chapter 3: Alleyn

i

Basil looked distinguished, Verity had to admit: exactly as he ought to look under the circumstances, and he behaved as one would wish him to behave, with dignity and propriety, with deference and with precisely the right shade of controlled emotion.

“I had no reason whatever to suspect that beyond symptoms of nervous exhaustion, which had markedly improved, there was anything the matter,” he said. “I feel I must add that I am astonished that she should have taken this step. She was in the best of spirits when I last saw her.”

“When was that, Dr. Schramm?” asked the coroner.

“On that same morning. About eight o’clock. I was going up to London and looked in on some of my patients before I left. I did not get back to Greengages until a few minutes after ten in the evening.”

“To find?”

“To find that she had died.”

“Can you describe the circumstances?”

“Yes. She had asked me to get a book for her in London: the autobiography of a Princess — somebody — I forget the name. I went to her room to deliver it. Our bedrooms are large and comfortable and are often used as sitting-rooms. I have been told that she went up to hers later that afternoon. Long before her actual bedtime. She had dinner there, watching television. I knocked and there was no reply but I could hear the television and presumed that because of it she had not heard me. I went in. She was in bed and lying on her back. Her bedside table-lamp was on and I saw at once that a bottle of tablets was overturned and several — five, in fact — were scattered over the surface of the table. Her drinking glass was empty but had been used and was lying on the floor. Subsequently a faint trace of alcohol — Scotch — was found in the glass. A small bottle of Scotch, empty, was on the table. She sometimes used to take a modest nightcap. Her jug of water was almost empty. I examined her and found that she was dead. It was then twenty minutes past ten.”

“Can you give a time for when death occurred?”

“Not exactly, no. Not less than an hour before I found her.”

“What steps did you taker”

“I made absolutely certain there was no possibility of recovery. I then called up our resident nurse. We employed a stomach pump. The results were subsequently analyzed and a quantity of barbiturates was found.” He hesitated and then said: “I would like, Sir, if this is an appropriate moment to add a word about Greengages and its general character and management.”

“By all means, Dr. Schramm.”

“Thank you. Greengages is not a hospital. It is a hotel with a resident medical practitioner. Many, indeed most, of our guests are not ill. Some are tired and in need of a change and rest. Some come to us simply for a quiet holiday. Some for a weight-reducing course. Some are convalescents preparing to return to normal life. A number of them are elderly people who are reassured by the presence of a qualified practitioner and a registered nurse. Mrs. Foster had been in the habit of coming from time to time. She was a nervy subject and a chronic worrier. I must say at once that I had not prescribed the barbiturate tablets she had taken and have no idea how she had obtained them. When she first came I did, on request, prescribe phenorbarbiturates at night to help her sleep but after her first week they were discontinued as she had no further need of them. I apologize for the digression but I felt it was perhaps indicated.”

“Quite. Quite. Quite,” chattered the complacent coroner.

“Well then, to continue. When we had done what had to be done, I got into touch with another doctor. The local practitioners were all engaged or out but finally I reached Dr. Field-Innis of Upper Quintern. He very kindly drove over and together we made further examination.”

“Finding?”

“Finding that she had died of an overdose. There was no doubt of it, at all. We found three half-dissolved tablets at the back of the mouth and one on the tongue. She must have taken the tablets four or five at a time and lost consciousness before she could swallow the last ones.”

“Dr. Field-Innis is present, is he not?”

“He is,” Basil said with a little bow in the right direction. Dr. Field-Innis bobbed up and down in his seat.

“Thank you very much, Dr. Schramm,” said the coroner with evident respect.

Dr. Field-Innis was called.

Verity watched him push his glasses up his nose and tip back his head to adjust his vision just as he always did after he had listened to one’s chest. He was nice. Not in the least dynamic or lordly, but nice. And conscientious. And, Verity thought, at the moment very clearly ill at ease.

He confirmed everything that Basil Schramm had deposed as to the state of the room and the body and the conclusion they had drawn and added that he himself had been surprised and shocked by the tragedy.

“Was the deceased a patient of yours, Dr. Field-Innis?”

“She consulted me about four months ago.”

“On what score?”

“She felt unwell and was nervy. She complained of migraine, sleeplessness and general anxiety. I prescribed a mild barbiturate. Not the proprietary tranquilizer she was found to have taken that evening, by the way.” He hesitated for a moment. “I suggested that she should have a general overhaul,” he said.

“Had you any reason to suspect there was something serious the matter?”

There was a longer pause. Dr. Field-Innis looked for a moment at Prunella. She sat between Gideon and Verity, who thought, irrelevantly, that like all blondes, especially when they were as pretty as Prunella, mourning greatly became her.

“That,” said Dr. Field-Innis, “is not an easy question to answer. There were, I thought, certain possible indications: very slight indeed, that should be followed up.”

“What were they?”

“A gross tremor in the hands. That does not necessarily imply a conspicuous tremor. And — this is difficult to define — a certain appearance in the face. I must emphasize that this was slight and possibly of no moment but I had seen something of the sort before and felt it should not be disregarded.”

“What might these symptoms indicate, Dr. Field-Innis? A stroke?” hazarded the coroner.

“Not necessarily.”

“Anything else?”

“I say this with every possible reservation. But yes. Just possibly — Parkinson’s disease.”

Prunella gave a strange little sound, half cry, half sigh. Gideon took her hand.

The coroner asked: “And did the deceased, in fact follow your advice?”

“No. She said she would think it over. She did not consult me again.”

“Had she any idea you suspected—?”

“Certainly not,” Dr. Field-Innis said loudly. “I gave no indication whatever. It would have been most improper to do so.”

“Have you discussed the matter with Dr. Schramm?”

“It has been mentioned, yes.”

“Had Dr. Schramm remarked these symptoms?” The coroner turned politely to Basil Schramm. “Perhaps,” he said, “we may ask?”

He stood up. “I had noticed the tremor,” he said. “On her case-history and on what she had told me, I attributed this to the general nervous condition.”

“Quite,” said the coroner. “So, gentlemen, we may take it, may we not, that fear of this tragic disease cannot have been a motive for suicide? We may rule that out?”

“Certainly,” they said together and together they sat down. “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Verity thought.

The resident nurse was now called: Sister Jackson, an opulent lady of good looks, a highish colour and an air of latent sexiness, damped down, Verity thought, to suit the occasion. She confirmed the doctors’ evidence and said rather snootily that of course if Greengages had been a hospital there would have been no question of Mrs. Foster having a private supply of any medicaments.

And now Prunella was called. It was a clear day outside and a ray of sunlight slanted through a window in the parish hall. As if on cue from some zealous stage-director it found Prunella’s white-gold head and made a saint of her.

“How lovely she is,” Gideon said quite audibly. Verity thought he might have been sizing up one of his father’s distinguished possessions. “And how obliging of the sun,” he added and gave her a friendly smile. This young man, she thought, takes a bit of learning.

The coroner was considerate with Prunella. She was asked about the afternoon visit to Greengages. Had there been anything unusual in her mother’s behaviour? The coroner was sorry to trouble her but would she mind raising her voice, the acoustics of the hall, no doubt, were at fault. Verity heard Gideon chuckle.

Prunella gulped and made a determined attempt to become fully vocal. “Not really,” she said. “Not unusual. My mother was rather easily fussed and — well — you know. As Dr. Schramm said, she worried.”

“About anything in particular, Miss Foster?”

“Well — about me, actually.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“About me,” Prunella shrilled and flinched at the sound of her own voice. “Sorry,” she said.

“About you?”

“Yes, I’d just got engaged and she fussed about that, sort of. But it was all right. Routine, really.”

“And you saw nothing particularly unusual?”

“Yes. I mean,” said Prunella frowning distressfully and looking across at Dr. Field-Innis, “I did think I saw somethings — different — about her.”

“In what way?”

“Well, she was — her hands — like Dr. Field-Innis said — were trembly. And her speech kind of, you know, dragged. And there was — or I thought there was — something about her face. As if it had kind of, you know, blanked out or sort of smoothed over, sort of — well — slowed up. I can’t describe it I wasn’t even quite sure it was there.”

“But it troubled you?”

“Yes. Sort of,” whispered Prunella.

She described how she and Gideon took her mother back to the house and how she went up with her to her room.

“She said she thought she’d have a rest and go to bed early and have dinner brought up to her. There was something she wanted to see on television. I helped her undress. She asked me not to wait. So I turned the box on and left her. She truly seemed all right, apart from being tired and upset about — about me and my engagement.” Prunella’s voice wavered into inaudibility, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Miss Foster,” asked the coroner, “just one more question. Was there a bottle of tablets on her bedside table?”

“Yes, there was,” Prunella said quickly. “She asked me to take it out of her beauty-box: you know, a kind of face-box. It was on the table. She said they were sleeping-pills she’d got from a chemist ages ago and she thought if she couldn’t go to sleep after her dinner she’d take one. I found them for her and put them out. And there was a lamp on the table, a book and an enormous box of petits-fours au massepain. She gets — she used to get them from that shop, the Marquise de Sevigné—in Paris. I ate some before I left.”

Prunella knuckled her eyes like a small girl and then hunted for her handkerchief. The coroner said they would not trouble her any more and she returned to Gideon and Verity.

Verity heard herself called and found she was nervous. She was taken over the earlier ground and confirmed all that Prunella had said. Nothing she was asked led to any mention of Bruce Gardener’s and Claude Carter’s arrivals at Greengages and as both of them had been fended off from meeting Sybil she did not think it incumbent on her to say anything about them. She saw that Bruce was in the hall, looking stiff and solemn as if the inquest was a funeral. He wore his Harris tweed suit and a black tie.

Poor Syb would have liked that. She would have probably said there was “good blood there” and you could tell by the way he wore his clothes. Meaning blue blood. And suddenly and irrelevantly there came over Verity the realization that she could never believe ridiculous old Syb had killed herself.

She had found Dr. Field-Innis’s remarks about Sybil’s appearance disturbing, not because she thought they bore the remotest relation to her death but because she herself had for so long paid so little attention to Sybil’s ailments. Suppose, all the time, there had been ominous signs? Suppose she had felt as ill as she said she did? Was it a case of “wolf, wolf”? Verity was miserable.

She did not pay much atttention when Gideon was called and said that he had returned briefly to Mrs. Foster’s room to collect Prunella’s bag and that she had seemed to be quite herself.

The proceedings now came to a close. The coroner made a short speech saying, in effect, that the jury might perhaps consider it was most unfortunate that nothing had emerged to show why the deceased had been moved to take this tragic and apparently motiveless step, so out of character according to all that her nearest and dearest felt about her. Nevertheless in face of what they had heard they might well feel that the circumstances all pointed in one direction. However — at this point Verity’s attention was distracted by the sight of Claude Carter, whom she had not noticed before. He was sitting at the end of a bench against the wall, wearing a superfluous raincoat with the collar turned up and was feasting quietly upon his fingernails.

“—and so,” the coroner was saying, “you may think that in view of the apparent absence of motive and not withstanding the entirely appropriate steps taken by Dr. Schramm, an autopsy should be carried out. If you so decide I shall, of course, adjourn the inquest sine die.”

The jury after a short withdrawal brought in a verdict along these lines and the inquest was accordingly adjourned until after the autopsy.

The small assembly emptied out into the summery quiet of the little village.

As she left the hall Verity found herself face to face with Young Mr. Rattisbon. Young Mr. Rattisbon was about sixty-five years of age and was the son of Old Mr. Rattisbon, who was ninety-two. They were London solicitors of eminent respectability and they had acted for Verity’s family and for Sybil’s unto the third and fourth generation. His father and Verity’s were old friends. As the years passed the son grew more and more like the father, even to adopting his eccentricities. They both behaved as if they were character-actors playing themselves in some dated comedy. Both had an extraordinary mannerism: when about to pronounce upon some choice point of law they exposed the tips of their tongues and vibrated them as if they had taken sips of scalding tea. They prefaced many of their remarks with a slight whinny.

When Mr. Rattisbon saw Verity he raised his out-of-date city hat very high and said, “Good morning,” three times and added, “Very sad, yes,” as if she had enquired whether it was or was not so. She asked him if he was returning to London but he said no, he would find himself something to eat in the village and then go up to Quintern Place if Prunella Foster found it convenient to see him.

Verity rapidly surveyed her larder and then said: “You can’t lunch in the village. There’s only the Passcoigne Arms and it’s awful. Come and have an omelette and cheese and a glass of reasonable hock with me.”

He gave quite a performance of deprecating whinnies but was clearly delighted. He wanted, he said, to have a word with the coroner and would drive up to Keys when it was over.

Verity, given this start, was able to make her unpretentious preparations. She laid her table, took some cold sorrel soup with cream from the refrigerator, fetched herbs from the orchard, broke eggs into a basin and put butter in her omelette pan. Then she paid a visit to her cellar and chose one of the few remaining bottles of her father’s sherry and one of the more than respectable hock.

When Mr. Rattisbon arrived she settled him in the drawing-room, joined him in a glass of sherry and left him with the bottle at his elbow while she went off to make the omelette.

They lunched successfully, finishing off with ripe Stilton and biscuits. Mr. Rattisbon had two and a half glasses of hock to Verity’s one. His face, normally the colour of one of his own parchments, became quite pink.

They withdrew into the garden and sat in weather-worn deck chairs under the lime trees.

“How very pleasant, my dear Verity,” said Mr. Rattisbon. “Upon my word, how quite delightful! I suppose, alas, I must keep my eye upon the time. And if I may, I shall telephone Miss Prunella. I mustn’t overstay my welcome.”

“Oh, fiddle, Ratsy!” said Verity, who had called him by this Kenneth Grahamish nickname for some forty years, “what did you think about the inquest?”

The professional change came over him. He joined his fingertips, rattled his tongue and made his noise.

“M’nah,” he said. “My dear Verity. While you were preparing our delicious luncheon I thought a great deal about the inquest and I may say that the more I thought the less I liked it. I will not disguise from you, I am uneasy.”

“So am I. What exactly is your worry? Don’t go all professionally rectitudinal like a diagram. Confide. Do, Ratsy, I’m the soul of discretion. My lips shall be sealed with red tape, I promise.”

“My dear girl, I don’t doubt it. I had, in any case, decided to ask you: you were, were you not, a close friend of Mrs. Foster?”

“A very old friend. I think perhaps the closeness was more on her side than mine if that makes sense.”

“She confided in you?”

“She’d confide in the Town Crier if she felt the need but yes, she did quite a lot.”

“Do you know if she has recently made a Will?”

“Oh,” said Verity, “is that your trouble?”

“Part of it, at least. I must tell you that she did in fact execute a Will four years ago. I have reason to believe that she may have made a later one but have no positive knowledge of such being the case. She — yah — she wrote to me three weeks ago advising me of the terms of a new Will she wished me to prepare. I was — frankly appalled. I replied, as I hoped, temperately, asking her to take thought. She replied at once that I need concern myself no further in the matter, with additions of a — of an intemperate — I would go so far as to say a hostile, character. So much so that I concluded that I had been given the — not to put too fine a point upon it — sack.”

“Preposterous!” cried Verity. “She couldn’t!”

“As it turned out she didn’t. On my writing a formal letter asking if she wished the return of Passcoigne documents which we hold, and I may add, have held since the barony was created, she merely replied by telegram.”

“What did it say?”

“It said ‘Don’t be silly.’ ”

“How like Syb!”

“Upon which,” said Mr. Rattisbon, throwing himself back in his chair, “I concluded that there was to be no severance of the connection. That is the last communication I had from her. I know not if she made a new Will. But the fact that I — yah — jibbed, might have led her to act on her own initiative. Provide herself,” said Mr. Rattisbon, lowering his voice as one who speaks of blasphemy, “with A Form. From some stationer. Alas.”

“Since she was in cool storage at Greengages, she’d have had to ask somebody to get the form for her. She didn’t ask me.”

“I think I hear your telephone, my dear,” Mr. Rattisbon said.

It was Prunella. “Godma V,” she said with unusual clarity, “I saw you talking to that fantastic old Mr. Rattisbon. Do you happen to know where he was going?”

“He’s here. He’s thinking of visiting you.”

“Oh, good. Because I suppose he ought to know. Because, actually, I’ve found something he ought to see.”

“What have you found, darling?”

“I’m afraid,” Prunella’s voice escalated to a plaintive squeak, “it’s a Will.”

When Mr. Rattisbon had taken his perturbed leave and departed, bolt upright, at the wheel of his car, Prunella rang again to say she felt that before he arrived she must tell her godmother more about her find.

“I can’t get hold of Gideon,” she said, “so I thought I’d tell you. Sorry, darling, but you know what I mean.”

“Of course I do.”

“Sweet of you. Well. It was in Mummy’s desk in the boudoir top drawer. In a stuck-up envelope with ‘Will’ on it. It was signed and witnessed ten days ago. At Greengages, of course, and it’s on a printed form thing.”

“How did it get to Quintern?”

“Mrs. Jim says Mummy asked Bruce Gardener to take it and put it in the desk. He gave it to Mrs. Jim and she put it in the desk. Godma V, it’s a stinker.”

“Oh dear.”

“It’s — you’ll never believe this — I can’t myself. It starts off by saying she leaves half her estate to me. You do know, don’t you, that darling Mummy was Rich Bitch. Sorry, that’s a fun-phrase. But true.”

“I did suppose she was.”

“I mean really rich. Rolling.”

“Yes.”

“Partly on account of grandpa Pascoigne and partly because Daddy was a wizard with the lolly. Where was I?”

“Half the estate to you,” Verity prompted.

“Yes. That’s over and above what Daddy entailed on me if that’s what it’s called. And Quintern’s entailed on me, too, of course.”

“”Nothing the matter with that, is there?”

“Wait for it. You’ll never, never believe this — half to me only if I marry awful Swingles — John Swingletree. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Not even with Mummy, I wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter, of course. I mean, I’ve got more than is good for me with the entailment. Of course it’s a lot less on account of inflation and all that but I’ve been thinking, actually, that I ought to give it away when I marry. Gideon doesn’t agree.”

“You astonish me.”

“But he wouldn’t stop me. Anyway he’s rather more than O.K. for lolly.” Prunella’s voice trembled. “But, Godma V,” she said, “how she could! How she could think it’d make me do it! Marry Swingles and cut Gideon just for the cash. It’s repulsive.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it of her. Does Swingletree want you to marry him, by the way?”

“Oh, yes,” said Prunella impatiently. “Never stops asking, the poor sap.”

“It must have been when she was in a temper,” said Verity. “She’d have torn it up when she came round.”

“But she didn’t, did she? And she’d had plenty of time to come round. And you haven’t heard anything yet. Who do you suppose she’s left to rest to? — well, all but twenty-five thousand pounds? She’s left twenty-five thousand pounds to Bruce Gardener, as well as a super little house in the village that is part of the estate and provision for him to be kept on as long as he likes at Quintern. But the rest — including the half if I don’t marry Swingles — to whom do you suppose—”

A wave of nausea came over Verity. She sat down by her telephone and saw with detachment that the receiver shook in her hand.

“Are you there?” Prunella was saying. “Hullo! Godma V?”

“I’m here.”

“I give you three guesses. You’ll never get it. Do you give up?”

“Yes.”

“Your heart-throb, darling, Dr. Basil Schramm.”

A long pause followed. Verity tried to speak but her mouth was dry.

“Godma, are you there? Is something the matter with your telephone? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard. I–I simply don’t know what to say.”

“Isn’t it awful?”

“It’s appalling.”

“I told you she was crackers about him, didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes, you did and I saw it for myself. But to do this—!”

“I know. When I don’t marry that ass Swingles, Schramm’ll get the lot.”

“Good God!” said Verity.

“Well, won’t he? I don’t know. Don’t ask me. Perhaps it’ll turn out to be not proper. The Will, I mean.”

“Ratsy will pounce on that — Mr. Rattisbon — if it is so. Is it witnessed?”

“It seems to be. By G. M. Johnson and Marleena Briggs. Housemaids at Greengages, I should think, wouldn’t you?”

“I daresay.”

“Well, I thought I’d just tell you.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I’ll let you know what Mr. Rats thinks.”

“Thanks.”

“Goodbye then, Godma darling.”

“Goodbye, darling. I’m sorry. Especially,” Verity managed, “about the Swingletree bit.”

“I know. Bruce is chicken feed, compared,” said Prunella. “And what a name!” she added. “Lady Swingletree! I ask you!” and hung up.

It was exactly a week after this conversation and in the morning of just such another halcyon day that Verity answered her front door-bell to find a very tall man standing in the porch.

He took off his hat. “Miss Preston?” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m a police officer. My name is Alleyn.”

ii

Afterward, when he had gone away, Verity thought it strange that her first reaction had not been one of alarm. At the moment of encounter she had simply been struck by Alleyn himself: by his voice, his thin face and — there was only one word she could find — his distinction. There was a brief feeling of incredulity and then the thought that he might be on the track of Charmless Claude. He sat there in her drawing-room with his knees crossed, his thin hands clasped together and his eyes, which were bright, directed upon her. It came as a shock when he said: “It’s about the late Mrs. Foster that I hoped to have a word with you.”

Verity heard herself say: “Is there something wrong?”

“It’s more a matter of making sure there isn’t,” he said. “This is a routine visit and I know that’s what we’re always supposed to say.”

“Is it because something’s turned up at the — examination: the — I can’t remember the proper word.”

“Autopsy?”

“Yes. Stupid of me.”

“You might say it’s arisen out of that, yes. Things have turned out a bit more complicated than was expected.”

After a pause, Verity said: “I’m sure one’s not meant to ask questions, is one?”

“Well,” he said, and smiled at her, “I can always evade answering but the form is supposed to be for me to ask.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not a bit. You shall ask me anything you like as the need arises. In the meantime shall I go ahead?”

“Please.”

“My first one is about Mrs. Foster’s room.”

“At Greengages?”

“Yes.”

“I was never in it.”

“Do you know if she habitually used a sort of glass sleeve contraption filled with scented oil that fitted over a lamp bulb?”

“ ‘Oasis’? Yes, she used it in the drawing-room at Quintern and sometimes, I think, in her bedroom. She adored what she called a really groovy smell.”

“ ‘Oasis,’ if that’s what it was, is all of that. They tell me the memory lingers on in the window curtains. Did she usually have a nightcap, do you know? Scotch?”

“I think she did, occasionally, but she wasn’t much of a drinker. Far from it.”

“Miss Preston, I’ve seen the notes of your evidence at the inquest but if you don’t mind I’d like to go back to the talk you had with Mrs. Foster on the lawn that afternoon. It’s simply to find out if by any chance, and on consideration, hindsight if you like, something was said that now seems to suggest she contemplated suicide.”

“Nothing. I’ve thought and thought. Nothing.” And as she said this Verity realized that with all her heart she wished there had been something and at the same time told herself how appalling it was that she could desire it. “I shall never get myself sorted out over this,” she thought and became aware that Alleyn was speaking to her.

“If you could just run over the things you talked about. Never mind if they seem irrelevant or trivial.”

“Well, she gossiped about the hotel. She talked a lot about — the doctor — and the wonders of his cure and about the nurse — Sister something — who she said resented her being a favourite. But most of all we talked about Prunella — her daughter’s — engagement.”

“Didn’t she fancy the young man?”

“Well — she was upset,” Verity said. “But — well, she was often upset. I suppose it would be fair to say she was inclined to get into tizzies at the drop of a hat.”

“A fuss-pot?”

“Yes.”

“Spoilt, would you say?” he asked, surprisingly.

“Rather indulged, perhaps.”

“Keen on the chaps?”

He put this to her so quaintly that Verity was startled into saying: “You are sharp!”

“A happy guess, I promise you,” said Alleyn.

“You must have heard about the Will,” she exclaimed.

“Who’s being sharp now?”

“I don’t know,” Verity said crossly, “why I’m laughing.”

“When, really, you’re very worried, aren’t you? Why?”

“I don’t know. Not really. It’s all so muddling,” she broke out. “And I hate being muddled.”

She stared helplessly at Alleyn. He nodded and gave a small affirmative sound.

“You see,” Verity began again, “when you asked if she said anything that suggested suicide I said ‘nothing,’ didn’t I? And if you’d known Syb as well as I did, there was nothing. But if you ask me whether she’s ever suggested anything of the sort — well, yes. If you count her being in a bit of a stink over some dust-up and throwing a temperament and saying life wasn’t worth living and she might as well end it all. But that was just histrionics. I often thought Syb’s true métier was the theatre.”

“Well,” said Alleyn, “you ought to know.”

“Have you seen Prunella? Her daughter?” Verity asked.

“Not yet. I’ve read her evidence. I’m on my way there. Is she at home, do you know?”

“She has been, lately. She goes up to London quite a lot.”

“Who’ll be there if she’s out?”

“Mrs. Jim Jobbin. General factotum. It’s her morning at Quintern.

“Anyone else?”

“Damn!” thought Verity, “here we go.” She said: “I haven’t been in touch. Oh, it’s the gardener’s day up there.”

“Ah yes. The gardener.”

“Then you do know about the Will?”

“Mr. Rattisbon told me about it. He’s an old acquaintance of mine. May we go back to the afternoon in question? Did you discuss Miss Foster’s engagement with her mother?”

“Yes. I tried to reconcile her to the idea.”

“Any success?”

“Not much. But she did agree to see them. Is it all right to ask — did they find — did the pathologist find — any signs of a disease?”

“He thinks, as Dr. Field-Innis did, that she might have had Parkinson’s disease.”

“If she had known that,” Verity said, “it might have made a difference. If she was told — but Dr. Field-Innis didn’t tell her.”

“And Dr. Schramm apparently didn’t spot it”

Sooner or later it had to come. They’d arrived at his name.

“Have you met Dr. Schramm?” Alleyn asked casually.

“Yes.”

“Know him well?”

“No. I used to know him many years ago but we had entirely lost touch.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“I’ve only met him once at a dinner-party some months ago. At Mardling: Mardling Manor belonging to Mr. Nikolas Markos. It’s his son who’s engaged to Prunella.”

“The millionaire Markos, would that be?”

“Not that I know. He certainly seems to be extremely affluent.”

“The millionaire who buys pictures,” said Alleyn, “if that’s any guide.”

“This one does that. He’d bought a Troy.”

“That’s the man,” said Alleyn. “She called it Several Pleasures.”

“But — how did you—? Oh, I see,” said Verity, “you’ve been to Mardling.”

“No. The painter is my wife.”

“Curiouser,” said Verity, after a long pause, “and curiouser.”

“Do you find it so? I don’t quite see why.”

“I should have said, how lovely. To be married to Troy.”

“Well, we like it,” said Troy’s husband. “Could I get back to the matter in hand, do you think?”

“Of course. Please,” said Verity with a jolt of nausea under her diaphragm.

“Where were we?”

“You asked me if I’d met Basil Smythe.”

“Smythe?”

“I should have said Schramm,” Verity amended quickly. “I believe Schramm was his mother’s maiden name. I think she wanted him to take it. He said something to that effect.”

“When would that have happened, would you suppose?”

“Sometime after I knew him, which was in 1951, I think,” Verity added and hoped it sounded casual.

“How long had Mrs. Foster known him, do you imagine?”

“Not — very long. She met him first at that same dinner-party. But,” said Verity quickly, “she’d been in the habit of going to Greengages for several years.”

“Whereas he only took over the practise last April,” he said casually. “Do you like him? Nice sort of chap?”

“As I said I’ve only met him that once.”

“But you knew him before?”

“It was — so very long ago.”

“I don’t think you liked him very much,” he murmured as if to himself. “Or perhaps — but it doesn’t matter.”

“Mr. Alleyn,” Verity said loudly and, to her chagrin, in an unsteady voice. “I know what was in the Will.”

“Yes, I thought you must.”

“And perhaps I’d better just say it — the Will — might have happened at any time in the past if Sybil had been thoroughly upset. On the rebound from a row, she could have left anything to anyone who was in favour at the time.”

“But did she to your knowledge ever do this in the past?”

“Perhaps she never had the same provocation in the past.”

“Or was not sufficiently attracted?”

“Oh,” said Verity, “she took fancies. Look at this whacking great legacy to Bruce.”

“Bruce? Oh, yes. The gardener. She thought a lot of him, I suppose? A faithful and tried old retainer? Was that it?”

“He’d been with her about six months and he’s middle-aged and rather like a resurrection from the more dubious pages of J. M. Barrie but Syb thought him the answer to her prayers.”

“As far as the garden was concerned?”

“Yes. He does my garden, too.”

“It’s enchanting. Do you dote on him, too?”

“No. But I must say I like him better than I did. He took trouble over Syb. He visited her once a week with flowers and I don’t think he was sucking up. I just think he puts on a bit of an act like a guide doing his sob-stuff over Mary Queen of Scots in Edinburgh Castle.”

“I’ve never heard a guide doing sob-stuff in Edinburgh Castle.

“They drool. When they’re not having a go at William and Mary, they get closer and closer to you and the tears seem to come into their eyes and they drool about Mary Queen of Scots. I may have been unlucky, of course. Bruce is positively taciturn in comparison. He overdoes the nature-lover bit but only perhaps because his employers encourage it. He is, in fact, a dedicated gardener.”

“And he visited Mrs. Foster at Greengages?”

“He was there that afternoon.”

“While you were there?”

Verity explained how Bruce and she had encountered in the grounds; and how she’d told him Sybil wouldn’t be able to see him then and how Prunella had suggested later on that he left his lilies at the desk.

“So he did just that?”

“I think so. I suppose they both went back by the next bus.”

“Both?”

“I’d forgotten Charmless Claude.”

“Did you say ‘Charmless’?”

“He’s Syb’s ghastly stepson.”

Verity explained Claude but avoided any reference to his more dubious activities, merely presenting him as a spineless drifter. She kept telling herself she ought to be on her guard with this atypical policeman in whose company she felt so inappropriately conversational. At the drop of a hat, she thought, she’d find herself actually talking about that episode of the past that she had never confided to anyone and which still persisted so rawly in her memory.

She pulled herself together. He had asked her if Claude was the son of Sybil’s second husband.

“No, of her first husband, Maurice Carter. She married him when she was seventeen. He was a very young widower. His first wife died in childbirth — leaving Claude, who was brought up by his grandparents. They didn’t like him very much, I’m afraid. Perhaps he might have turned out better if they had, but there it is. And then Maurice married Syb, who was in the WRENS. She was on duty somewhere in Scotland when he got an unexpected leave. He came down here to Quintern — Quintern Place is her house, you know — and tried to ring her up but couldn’t get through so he wrote a note. While he was doing this he was recalled urgently to London. The troop-train he caught was bombed and he was killed. She found the note afterwards. That’s a sad story, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Was this stepson, Claude, provided for?”

“Very well provided for, really. His father wasn’t an enormously rich man but he left a trust fund that paid for Claude’s upbringing. It still would be a reasonable standby if he didn’t contrive to lose it, as fast as it comes in. Of course,” Verity said more to herself than to Alleyn, “it’d have been different if the stamp had turned up.”

“Did you say ‘stamp’?”

“The Black Alexander. Maurice Carter inherited it. It was a pre-revolution Russian stamp that was withdrawn on the day it was issued because of a rather horrid little black flaw that looked like a bullet-hole in the Czar’s forehead. Apparently there was only the one specimen known to be in existence and so this one was worth some absolutely fabulous amount of money. Maurice’s own collection was medium-valuable and it went to Claude, who sold it, but the Black Alexander couldn’t be found. He was known to have taken it out of his bank the day before he died. They searched and searched but with no luck and it’s generally thought he must have had it on him when he was killed. It was a direct hit. It was bad luck for Claude about the stamp.”

“Where is Claude now?”

Verity said uncomfortably that he had been staying at Quintern but she didn’t know if he was still there.

“I see. Tell me: when did Mrs. Foster remarry?”

“In — when was it? In 1955. A large expensive stockbroker who adored her. He had a heart condition and died of it in 1964. You know,” Verity said suddenly, “when one tells the whole story, bit by bit, it turns almost into a classic tragedy, and yet, somehow one can’t see poor old Syb as a tragic figure. Except when one remembers the look.”

“The look that was spoken of at the inquest?”

“Yes. It would have been quite frightful if she, of all people, had suffered that disease.”

After a longish pause Verity said: “When will the inquest be reopened?”

“Quite soon. Probably early next week. I don’t think you will be called again. You’ve very helpful.”

“In what way? No, don’t tell me,” said Verity. “I–I don’t think I want to know. I don’t think I want to be helpful.”

“Nobody loves a policeman,” he said cheerfully and stood up. So did Verity. She was a tall woman but he towered over her.

He said: “I think this business has upset you more than you realize. Will you mind if I give you what must sound like a professionally motivated word of advice? If it turns out that you’re acquainted with some episode or some piece of behaviour, perhaps quite a long way back in time, that might throw a little light on — say on the character of one or the other of the people we have discussed — don’t withhold it. You never know. By doing so you might be doing a disservice to a friend.”

“We’re back to the Will again. Aren’t we?”

“Oh, that? Yes. In a sense we are.”

“You think she may have been influenced? Or that in some way it might be a cheat? Is that it?”

“The possibility must be looked at when the terms of a Will are extravagant and totally unexpected and the Will itself is made so short a time before the death of the testator.”

“But that’s not all? Is it? You’re not here just because Syb made a silly Will. You’re here because she died. You think it wasn’t suicide. Don’t you?”

He waited so long and looked so kindly at her that she was answered before he spoke.

“I’m afraid that’s it,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

Again he waited, expecting, perhaps, that she might ask more questions or break down but she contrived, as she put it to herself, to keep up appearances. She supposed she must have gone white because she found he had put her back in her chair. He went away and returned with a glass of water.

“I found your kitchen,” he said. “Would you like brandy with this?”

“No — why? There’s nothing the matter with me,” said Verity and tried to steady her hand. She took a hurried gulp of water.

“Dizzy spell,” she improvised. “ ‘Age with stealing steps’ and all that.”

“I don’t think he can be said to have ‘clawed you with his clutch’.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway, I shan’t bother you any longer. Unless there’s something I can do?”

“I’m perfectly all right. Thank you very much, though.”

“Sure? I’ll be off then. Goodbye.”

Through the drawing-room window she watched him go striding down the drive and heard a car start up in the lane.

“Time, of course, does heal, as people say in letters of condolence,” she thought. “But they don’t mention the scars and twinges that crop up when the old wound gets an unexpected jolt. And this is a bad jolt,” thought Verity. “This is a snorter.”

And Alleyn, being driven by Inspector Fox to Quintern Place, said: “That’s a nice intelligent creature, Br’er Fox. She’s got character and guts but she couldn’t help herself going white when I talked about Schramm. She was much concerned to establish that they hadn’t met for many years and then only once. Why? An old affair? On the whole, I can’t wait to meet Dr. Schramm.”

iii

But first they must visit Quintern Place. It came into view unmistakably as soon as they had passed through the village: a Georgian house halfway up a hill, set in front of a stand of oaks and overlooking a rose-garden, lawns, a ha-ha and a sloping field and woodlands. Facing this restrained and lovely house and separated from it by a shallow declivity, was a monstrous Victorian pile, a plethora of towers and pepper pots approached by a long avenue that opened, by way of grandiloquent gates, off the lane leading to Quintern. “That’s Mardling Manor, that is,” said Alleyn, “the residence of Mr. Nikolas Markos, who had the good sense and taste to buy Troy’s Several Pleasures.”

“I wouldn’t have thought the house was quite his style,” said Mr. Fox.

“And you’d have been dead right. I can’t imagine what possessed him to buy such a monumental piece of complacency unless it was to tease himself with an uninterrupted view of a perfect house,” said Alleyn and little knew how close to the mark he had gone.

“Did you pay a call on the local Super?” he asked.

“Yes. He’s looking forward to meeting you. I got a bit of info out of him,” said Mr. Fox, “which came in handy seeing I’ve only just been brought in on the case. It seems they’re interested in the deceased lady’s stepson, a Mr. Carter. He’s a bit of a ne’er-do-well. Worked his way home from Australia in the Poseidon as a ship’s steward. He’d done porridge for attempted blackmail and sussy for bringing the hard stuff ashore but they haven’t got enough for a catch. He’s staying up at Quintern Place.”

“So Miss Preston thought. And here we go.”

The approach was through a grove of rhododendrons from which they came out rather unexpectedly on a platform in front of the house.

Looking up at the facade, Alleyn caught a fractional impression of someone withdrawing from a window at the far end of the first floor. Otherwise there was no sign of life.

The door was opened by a compact little person in an apron. She looked quickly at the car and its driver and then doubtfully at Alleyn, who took off his hat.

“You must be Mrs. Jim Jobbin,” he said.

Mrs. Jim looked hard at him. “That’s correct,” she said.

“Do you think Miss Foster could give me a moment if she’s in?”

“She’s not.”

“Oh.”

Mrs. Jim gave a quick look across the little valley to where Mardling Manor shamelessly exhibited itself. “She’s out,” she said.

“I’m sorry about that. Would you mind if I came in and had a word with you? I’m a police officer but there’s no need to let that bother you. It’s only to tidy up some details about the inquest on Mrs. Foster.”

He had the impression that Mrs. Jim listened for something to happen inside the house and not hearing it, waited for him to speak and not hearing that either, was relieved. She gave him another pretty hard look and then stood away from the door.

“I’ll just ask my colleague to wait if I may?” Alleyn said and returned to the car.

“A certain amount of caginess appears,” he murmured. “If anything emerges and looks like melting away ask it if it’s Mr. Carter and keep it here. Same goes for the gardener.” Aloud he said: “I won’t be long,” and returned to the house.

Mrs. Jim stood aside for him and he went into a large and beautifully proportioned hall. It was panelled in parchment-coloured linenfold oak with a painted ceiling and elegant stairway. “What a lovely house,” Alleyn said. “Do you look after it?”

“I help out,” said Mrs. Jim guardedly.

“Miss Preston told me about you. Mrs. Foster’s death must have been a shock after knowing her for so long.”

“It seemed a pity,” Mrs. Jim conceded economically.

“Did you expect anything of the kind?”

“I didn’t expect anything. I never thought she’d make away with herself if that’s what’s meant. She wasn’t the sort.”

“Everybody seems to think that,” Alleyn agreed. The hall went right through the house and at the far end looked across rose-gardens to the misty Weald of Kent. He moved to the windows and was in time to see a head and shoulders bob up and down behind a box hedge. The owner seemed to be crouched and running.

“You’ve got somebody behaving rather oddly in your garden,” said Alleyn. “Come and look.”

She moved behind him.

“He’s doubled up,” Alleyn said, “behind that tallish hedge. Could he be chasing some animal?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“Who could it be?”

“The gardener’s working here today.”

“Has he got long fair hair?”

“No,” she said quickly and passed her working hand across her mouth.

“Would the gentleman in the garden, by any chance, be Mr. Claude Carter?”

“It might.”

“Perhaps he’s chasing butterflies.”

“He might be doing anything,” said Mrs. Jim woodenly.

Alleyn, standing back from the window and still watching the hedge, said: “There’s only one point I need bother you with, Mrs. Jobbin. It’s about the envelope that I believe you put in Mrs. Foster’s desk after her death.”

“She give it to the gardener about a week before she died and said he was to put it there. He give it to me and asked me to. Which I did.”

“And you told Miss Foster it was there?”

“Correct. I remembered it after the inquest.”

“Do you know what was in it?”

“It was none of my business, was it, sir?” said Mrs. Jim, settling for the courtesy title, “It had ‘Will’ written on the outside and Miss Prue said it was a stinker. She give it to the lawyer.”

“Was it sealed, do you remember?”

“It was gummed up. Sort of.”

“Sort of, Mrs. Jim?”

“Not what you’d call a proper job. More of a careless lick. She was like that with her letters. She’d think of something she’d meant to say and open them up and then stick them down with what was left of the gum. She was great on afterthoughts.”

“Would you mind letting me see the desk?”

Mrs. Jim’s face reddened and she stuck out her lower lip.

“Mrs. Jobbin,” Alleyn said. “Don’t think we’re here for any other purpose than to try and sort matters out in order that there shall be no injustice done to anybody, including Miss Prunella Foster, or if it comes to that, to the memory of her mother. I’m not setting traps at the moment, which is not to say a copper never does. As I expect you very well know. But not here and not now. I would simply like to see the desk, if you’ll show me where it is.”

She looked fixedly at him for an appreciable interval and then broke out: “It’s no business of mine, this isn’t. I don’t know anything about anything that goes on up here, sir, and if you’ll excuse my speaking out, I don’t want to. Miss Prue’s all right. She’s a nice young lady for all you can’t hear half she says and anyone can see she’s been upset. But she’s got her young man and he’s sharp enough for six and he’ll look after her. So’ll his old — his father,” amended Mrs. Jim. “He’s that pleased, anyway, with the match, seeing he’s getting what he’d set his heart on.”

“Really? What was that?” Alleyn asked still keeping an eye on the box hedge.

“This property. He wanted to buy it and they say he would have paid anything to get it. Well, in a sort of way he’ll get his wish now, won’t he? It’s settled he’s to have his own rooms; self-contained like. I’ll show you the desk, then, if you’ll come this way.”

It was in a smallish room, known in her lifetime as Sybil’s boudoir, which lay between the great drawing-room and the dining-room where, on the day of the old gardener’s death, the Upper Quintern ladies had held their meeting. The desk, a nice piece of Chippendale, stood in the window. Mrs. Jim indicated the centre drawer and Alleyn opened it. Letter paper, stamps and a diary were revealed.

“The drawer wasn’t locked?” he asked.

“Not before, it wasn’t. I left the envelope on top of some papers and then I thought it best to turn the key in the lock and keep it. I handed the key to Miss Prue. She doesn’t seem to have locked it.” She waited for a moment and then, for the second time, broke out

“If you want to know any more about it you can ask Bruce. He fetched it. Mrs. Foster give it to him.”

“Do you think he knows what was in it? The details, I mean?”

“Ask him. I don’t know. I don’t discuss the business of the house and I don’t ask questions: no more than I expect them to ask me.”

“Mrs. Jobbin, I’m sure you don’t and I won’t bother you much further.”

He was about to shut the drawer when he noticed a worn leather case. He opened it and disclosed a photograph, in faded sepia, of a group from a Scottish regiment. Among the officers was a second lieutenant, so emphatically handsome as to stand out from among his fellows.

“That’s her first,” said Mrs. Jim, at Alleyn’s back. “Third from the left. Front row. First war. Name of Carter.”

“He must have been a striking chap to look at.”

“Like a Greek god,” Mrs. Jim startled him by announcing, still in her wooden voice. “That’s what they used to say: them in the village that remembered him.”

Wondering which of the Upper Quintern worthies had employed this classy simile, Alleyn pushed the drawer shut and looked at the objects on the top of the desk. Prominent among them was a photograph of pretty Prunella Foster: one of the ultra-conservative kind, destined for glossy magazines and thought of by Alleyn as “Cabinet Pudding.” Further off, and equally conventional, was that of a middle-aged man of full habit and slightly prominent eyes who had signed himself “John.” That would be Foster: the second husband and Prunella’s father. Alleyn looked down into the pink-shaded lamp on Sybil Foster’s desk. The bulb was covered by a double-glass slipper. A faint rumour of sweet almonds still hung about it.

“Was there anything else you was wanting?” asked Mrs. Jim.

“Not from you, thank you, Mrs. Jobbin. I’d like a word with the gardener. I’ll find him somewhere out there, I expect.” He waited for a moment and then said cheerfully: “I gather you’re not madly keen on him.”

“Him,” said Mrs. Jim. “I wouldn’t rave and that’s a fact. Too much of the Great I Am.”

“The—?”

“Letting on what a treat he is to all and sundry.”

“Including Mrs. Foster?”

“Including everybody. It’s childish. One of these days he’ll burst into poetry and stifle himself,” said Mrs. Jim and then seemed to think better of it. “No harm in ’im, mind,” she amended. “Just asking for attention. Like a child, pathetic, reely. And good at his work, he is. You’ve got to hand it to him. He’s all right at bottom even if it is a long way down.”

“Mrs. Jobbin,” said Alleyn, “you are a very unexpected and observant lady. I will leave my card for Miss Foster and I wish you a grateful good morning.”

He held out his hand. Mrs. Jobbin, surprised into a blush, put her corroded little paw into it and then into her apron pocket.

“Bid you good-day, then,” she said. “Sir. You’ll likely find him near the old stables. First right from the front door and right again. Growing mushrooms, for Gawd’s sake.”

Bruce was not near the old stables but in them. As Alleyn approached he heard the drag and slam of a door and when he “turned right again,” found his man.

Bruce had evidently taken possession of what had originally been some kind of open-fronted lean-to abutting on the stables. He had removed part of the flooring and dug up the ground beneath. Bags of humus and a heap of compost awaited his attention.

In response to Alleyn’s greeting he straightened up, squared his shoulders and came forward. “Guid day, sir,” he said: “Were you looking for somebody?”

“For you,” Alleyn said, “if your name’s Gardener.”

“It is that. Gardener’s the name and gardener’s the occupation,” he said, evidently cracking a vintage quip. “What can I do for you, then?”

Alleyn made the usual announcement

“Police?” said Bruce loudly and stared at him. “Is that a fact? Ou aye, who’d have thowt it?”

“Would you like me to flash a card at you?” Alleyn asked lightly. Bruce put his head on one side, gazed at him, waited for a moment and then became expansive.

“Och, na, na, na, na,” he said. “Not at a’, not at a’. There’s no call for anything o’ the sort. You didna strike me at first sight as a constabulary figure, just. What can I do for you?”

Members of the police force develop a sixth sense about the undeclared presence of offstage characters. Alleyn had taken the impression that Bruce was aware, but not anxiously, of a third person somewhere in the offing.

“I wanted to have a word with you, if I might,” he said, “about the late Mrs. Foster. I expect you know about the adjourned inquest.”

Bruce looked fixedly at him. “He’s refocussing,” thought Alleyn. “He was expecting something else.”

“I do that,” Bruce said. “Aye. I do that.”

“You’ll realize, of course, that the reason for the adjournment was to settle, beyond doubt, the question of suicide.”

Bruce said slowly: “I wad never have believed it of her. Never. She was aye fu’ of enthusiasm. She like fine to look ahead to the pleasures of her garden. Making plans! What for would we be planning for mushrooms last time I spoke with her if she was of a mind to make awa’ wi’ herself?”

“When was that?”

He pushed his gardener’s fingers through his sandy hair and said it would have been when he visited her a week before it happened and that she had been in great good humour and they had drawn plans on the back of an envelope for a lily-pond and had discussed making a mushroom bed here in the old stables. He had promised to go into matters of plumbing and mulching and here he was, carrying on as if she’d be coming home to see it. Something, he said, must have happened during that last week to put sic’ awfu’ thoughts into her head.

“Was it on that visit,” Alleyn asked, “that she gave you her Will to put in her desk here at Quintern?”

Bruce said aye, it was that and intimated that he hadn’t fancied the commission but that her manner had been so light-hearted he had not entertained any real misgivings.

Alleyn said: “Did Mrs. Foster give you any idea of the terms of this Will?”

For the first time he seemed to be discomforted. He bent his blue unaligned gaze on Alleyn and muttered: she had mentioned that he wasn’t forgotten.

“I let on,” he said, “that I had no mind to pursue the matter.”

He waited for a moment and then said Alleyn would consider maybe that this was an ungracious response but he’d not like it to be thought he looked for anything of the sort from her. He became incoherent, shuffled his boots and finally burst out: “To my way of thinking it isna just the decent thing.”

“Did you say as much to Mrs. Foster?”

“I did that.”

“How did she take it?”

“She fetched a laugh and said I’d no call to be sae squeamish.”

“Did she tell you how much she’d left you?”

A pause.

“She didna,” he said at last. “She fetched a bit laugh and asked me would I like to make a guess. I said I would not.”

“And that was all?”

“Ou aye. I delivered the thing into the hand of Mrs. Jim, having no mind to tak’ it further, and she told me she’d put it in the desk.”

“Was the envelope sealed?”

“No’ sealed in the literal sense but licked up. The mistress was na’ going to close it but I said I’d greatly prefer that she should.” He waited for a moment. “It’s no’ that I wouldna have relished the acquisition of a wee legacy,” he said. “Not a great outlandish wallop, mind, but a wee, decent amount. I’d like that. I would so. I’d like it fine and put it by, remembering the bonny giver. But I wouldna have it thowt or said I took any part in the proceedings.”

“I understand that,” said Alleyn. “By the way, did Mrs. Foster ask you to get the form for her?”

“The forrum? What forrum would that be, sir?”

“The Will. From a stationer’s shop?”

“Na, na,” he said, “I ken naething o’ that.”

“And, while we’re on the subject, did she ask you to bring things in for her? When you visited her?”

It appeared that he had from time to time fetched things from Quintern to Greengages. She would make a list and he would give it to Mrs. Jim. “Clamjampherie,” mostly, he thought, things from her dressing-table. Sometimes, he believed, garments. Mrs. Jim would put them in a small case so that he wasn’t embarrassed by impedimenta unbecoming to a man. Mrs. Foster would repack the case with things to be laundered. Alleyn gathered that the strictest decorum was observed. If he was present at these exercises he would withdraw to the window. He was at some pains to make this clear, arranging his mouth in a prim expression as he did so.

A picture emerged from these recollections of an odd, a rather cosy, relationship, enjoyable, one would think, for both parties. Plans had been laid, pontifications exchanged. There had been, probably, exclamatory speculation as to what the world was coming to, consultations over nurserymen’s catalogues, strolls round the rose-garden and conservatory. Bruce sustained an air of rather stuffy condescension in letting fall an occasional reference to these observances and still he gave, as Mrs. Jim in her own fashion had given, an impression of listening for somebody or something.

Behind him in the side wall was a ramshackle closed door leading, evidently, into the main stables. Alleyn saw that it had gaps between the planks and had dragged its course through loose soil on what was left of the floor.

He made as if to go and then looking at Bruce’s preparations asked if this was in fact to be the proposed mushroom bed. He said it was.

“It was the last request she made,” he said. “And I prefer to carry it out.” He expanded a little on the techniques of mushroom culture and then said, not too pointedly, if that was all he could do for Alleyn he’d better get on with it and reached for his long-handled shovel.

“There was one other thing,” Alleyn said. “I almost forgot. You did actually go over to Greengages on the day of her death, didn’t you?”

“I did so. But I never saw her,” he said and described how he had waited in the hall with his lilies and how Prunella—“the wee lassie,” he predictably called her — had come down and told him her mother was very tired and not seeing anybody that evening. He had left the lilies at the desk and the receptionist lady had said they would be attended to. So he had returned home by bus.

“With Mr. Claude Carter?” asked Alleyn.

Bruce became very still. His hands tightened on the shovel. He stared hard at Alleya, made as if to speak and changed his mind. Alleyn waited.

“I wasna aware, just,” Bruce said at last, “that you had spoken to that gentleman.”

“Nor have I. Miss Preston mentioned that he arrived with you at Greengages.”

He thought that over. “He arrived. That is so,” said Bruce, “but he did not depart with me.” He raised his voice. “I wish it to be clearly understood,” he said. “I have no perrsonal relationship with that gentleman.” And then very quietly and with an air of deep resentment: “He attached himself to me. He wurrumed the information out of me as to her whereabouts. It was an indecent performance and one that I cannot condone.”

He turned his head fractionally toward the closed door. “And that is the total sum of what I have to say in the matter,” he almost shouted.

“You’ve been very helpful. I don’t think I need pester you any more: thank you for co-operating.”

“There’s no call for thanks: I’m a law-abiding man,” Bruce said, “and I canna thole mysteries. Guid day to you, sir.”

“This is a lovely old building,” Alleyn said, “I’m interested in Georgian domestic architecture. Do you mind if I have a look round?”

Without waiting for an answer he passed Bruce and the closed door, dragged it open and came face-to-face with Claude Carter.

“Oh, hullo,” said Claude. “I thought I heard voices.”