Hand in Glove

CHAPTER FOUR Alleyn

“There you are,” said Superintendent Williams. “That’s the whole story and those are the local people involved. Or not involved, of course, as the case may be. Now, the way I looked at it was this. It was odds-on we’d have to call you people in anyway, so why muck about ourselves and let the case go cold on you? I don’t say we wouldn’t have liked to go it alone, but we’re too damned busy and a damn’ side too understaffed. So I rang the Yard as soon as it broke.”

“The procedure,” Alleyn said dryly, “is as welcome as it’s unusual. We couldn’t be more obliged, could we, Fox?”

“Very helpful and clearsighted, Super,” Inspector Fox agreed with great heartiness.

They were driving from the Little Codling constabulary to Green Lane. The time was ten o’clock. The village looked decorous and rather pretty in the spring sunshine. Miss Cartell’s Austrian maid was shaking mats in the garden. The postman was going his rounds. Mr. Period’s house, as far as it could be seen from the road, showed no signs of disturbance. At first sight, the only hint of there being anything unusual might have been given by a group of three labourers who stood near a crane truck at the corner, staring at their boots and talking to the driver. There was something guarded and uneasy in their manner. One of them looked angry.

A close observer might have noticed that, in several houses round the Green, people who stood back from their windows were watching the car as it approached the lane. The postman checked his bicycle and, with one foot on the ground, also watched. George Copper stood in the path outside his corner garage and was joined by two women, a youth and three small boys. They, too, were watching. The women’s hands moved furtively across their mouths.

“The village has got on to it,” Superintendent Williams observed. “Here we are, Alleyn.”

They turned into the lane. It had been cordoned off with a rope slung between iron stakes and a Detour sign in front. The ditch began at some distance from the corner, and was defined on its inner border by neatly heaped-up soil and on its outer by a row of heavy drainpipes laid end to end. There was a gap in this row opposite Mr. Period’s gate, and a single drainpipe on the far side of the ditch.

One of the workmen made an opening for the car and it pulled up beyond the truck.

Two hundred yards away, by the side gate into Mr. Period’s garden, Sergeant Noakes waited selfconsciously by a disorderly collection of planks, tools, a twelve-foot steel ladder, and an all-too-eloquent shape covered by a tarpaulin. Nearby, on the far side of the lane, was another car. Its occupant got out and advanced: a middle-aged, formally dressed man with well-kept hands.

“Dr. Elkington, our divisional surgeon,” Superintendent Williams said, and completed the introductions.

“Unpleasant business, this,” Dr. Elkington said. “Very unpleasant. I don’t know what you’re going to think.”

“Shall we have a look?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Bear a hand, Sergeant,” said Williams. “Keep it screened from the Green, we’d better.”

“I’ll move my car across,” Dr. Elkington said. He did so. Noakes and Williams released the tarpaulin and presently raised it. Alleyn being particular in such details, he and Fox took their hats off and so, after a surprised glance at them, did Dr. Elkington.

The body of Mr. Cartell lay on its back, not tidily. It was wet with mud and water, and marked about the head with blood. The face, shrouded in a dark and glistening mask, was unrecognizable, the thin hair clotted and dirty. It was clothed in a dressing gown, shirt and trousers, all of them stained and disordered. On the feet were black socks and red leather slippers. One hand was clenched about a clod of earth. Thin trickles of muddy water had oozed between the fingers.

Alleyn knelt beside it without touching it. He looked incongruous. Not his hands, his head, nor, for that matter, his clothes, suggested his occupation. If Mr. Cartell had been a rare edition of any subject other than death, his body would have seemed a more appropriate object for Alleyn’s fastidious consideration.

After a pause he replaced the tarpaulin, rose, and, keeping on the hard surface of the lane, stared down into the drain.

“Well,” he said. “And he was found below, there?” His very deep, clear voice struck loudly across the silence.

“Straight down from where they’ve put him. On his face. With the drainpipe on top of him.”

“Yes. I see.”

“They thought he might be alive. So they got him out of it. They had a job,” said Superintendent Williams. “Had to use the gear on the truck.”

“He was like this when you saw him, Dr. Elkington?”

“Yes. There are multiple injuries to the skull. I haven’t made an extensive examination. My guess would be it’s just about held together by the scalp.”

“Can we have a word with the men?”

Noakes motioned them to come forward and they did so with every sign of reluctance. One, the tallest, carried a piece of rag and he wiped his hands on it continually, as if he had been doing so, unconsciously, for some time.

“Good morning,” Alleyn said. “You’ve had an unpleasant job on your hands.”

The tall man nodded. One of his mates said: “Terrible.”

“I want you, if you will, to tell me exactly what happened. When did you find him?”

Fox unobtrusively took out his notebook.

“When we come on the job. Eight o’clock or near after.”

“You saw him at once?”

“Not to say there and then, sir,” the tall man said. He was evidently the foreman. “We had a word or two. Nutting out the day’s work, like. Took off our coats. Further along, back there, we was. You can see where the truck’s parked. There.”

“Ah, yes. And then?”

“Then we moved up. And I see the planks are missing that we laid across the drain for a bridge. And one of the pipes gone. So I says: ‘What the hell’s all this? Who’s been mucking round with them planks and the pipe?’ That’s correct, isn’t it?” He appealed to the others.

“That’s right,” they said.

“It’s like I told you, Mr. Noakes. We all told you.”

“All right, Bill,” Williams said easily. “The Superintendent just wants to hear for himself.”

“If you don’t mind,” said Alleyn. “To get a clear idea, you know…It’s better at first hand.”

The foreman said: “It’s not all that pleasant, though, is it? And us chaps have got our responsibility to think of. We left the job like we ought to: everything in order. Planks set. Lamps lit. Everything safe. Now look!”

“Lamps? I saw some at the ends of the working. Was there one here?”

“A-course there was. To show the planks. That’s the next thing we notice. It’s gone. Matter of fact they’re all laying in the drain now.”

“So they are,” Alleyn said. “It’s a thumping great drain you’re digging here, by the way. What is it, a relief outfall sewer or something?”

This evidently made an impression. The foreman said that was exactly what it was and went into a professional exposition.

“She’s deep,” he said. “She’s as deep as you’ll come across anywhere. Fourteen-be-three she lays, and very nasty spoil to work, being wet and heavy. One in a thou’-fall. All right. Leaving an open job you take precautions. Lamp. Planks. Notice given. The lot. Which is what we done, and done careful and according.…And this is what we find. All right; we see something’s wrong. All right; so I says, ‘And where’s the bloody lamp?’ and I walk up to the edge and look down. And then I seen.”

“Exactly what?”

The foreman ground the rag between his hands.

“First go off,” he said, “I notice the pipe, laying down there with a lot of the spoil, and then I notice an electric torch — it’s there now.”

“It’s the deceased’s,” Williams said. “His man recognized it. I thought best to leave it there.”

“Good. And then?” Alleyn asked the foreman.

“Well, I noticed all this, like, and — it’s funny when you come to think of it — I’m just going to blow my top about this pipe, when I kind of realize I’ve been looking at something else. Sticking out, they was, at the end, half sunk in mud. His legs. It didn’t seem real. Like I said to the chaps: ‘Look, what’s that?’ Daft! Because I seen clear enough what it was.”

“I know.”

“So we get the truck and go down and clear the pipe and planks out of it. Had to use the crane. The planks are laying there now, where we left them. We slung the pipe up and off him and across to the far bank like. Then we seen more — all there was to see. Sunk, he was. Rammed down, you might say, be the weight. I knew, first go off, he was a goner. Well — the back of his head was enough. But—” The foreman glared resentfully at Noakes. “I don’t give a b— what anyone tells me, you can’t leave a thing like that. You got to see if there’s anything to be done.”

Noakes made a noncommittal noise and looked at Alleyn. “I think you do, you know, Sergeant,” Alleyn said, and the foreman, gratified, continued.

“So we got ’im out like you said, sir. It was a very nasty job, what with the depth and the wet and the state he was in. And once out — finish! Gone. No mistake about it. So we give the alarm in the house there and they take a fit of the horrors and fetch the doctor.”

“Good,” Alleyn said, “couldn’t be clearer. Now look here. You can see pretty well where he was lying although, of course, the impression has been trodden out a bit. Unavoidably. Now, the head was about there, I take it, so that he was not directly under the place where the planks had been laid, but at an angle to it. The feet beneath, the head out to the left. The left hand, now. Was it stretched out ahead of him? Like that? With the arm bent? Was the right arm extended — so?”

The foreman and his mates received this with grudging approval. One of the mates said: “Dead right, innit?” and the other: “Near enough.” The foreman blew a faint appreciative whistle.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “he’s clutching a clod of mud and you can see where the fingers dragged down the side of the ditch, can’t you? All right. Was one plan — how? Half under him or what?”

“That’s right, sir.”

Superintendent Williams said: “You can see where the planks were placed all right, before they fell. Clear as mud, and mud’s the word in this outfit. The ends near the gate were only just balanced on the edge. Look at the marks where they scraped down the side. Bound to give way as soon as he put his weight on them.”

The men broke into an angry expostulation. They’d never left them like that. They’d left them safe: overlapping the bank by a good six inches at each side; a firm bridge.

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “you can see that, Williams. There are the old marks. Trodden down but there, undoubtedly.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the foreman pointedly.

“Now then, let’s have a look at this lamp,” Alleyn suggested. Using their ladder, they retrieved it from its bed in the ditch, about two feet above the place where the body had lain. It was smothered in mud, but unbroken. The men pointed out an iron stanchion from which it had been suspended. This was uprooted and lying near the edge of the drain.

“The lamp was lit when you knocked off yesterday, was it?”

“Same as the others, and they was still burning, see, when we come on the job this morning.”

Alleyn murmured: “Look at this, Fox.” He turned the lamp towards Fox, who peered into it.

“Been turned right down,” he said under his breath. “Hard down.”

“Take charge of it, will you?”

Alleyn rejoined the men. “One more point,” he said. “How did you leave the drainpipe yesterday evening? Was it laid out in that gap, end to end with the others?”

“That’s right,” they said.

“Immediately above the place where the body was found?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

The foreman looked at his mates and then burst out again with some violence. “And if anyone tries to tell you it could be moved be accident you can tell him he ought to get his head read. Them pipes is main sewer pipes. It takes a crane to shift them, the way we’ve left them, and only a lever will roll them in. Now! Try it out on one of the others if you don’t believe me. Try it. That’s all.”

“I believe you very readily,” Alleyn said. “And I think that’s all we need bother you about at the moment. We’ll get out a written record of everything you’ve told us and ask you to call at the Station and look it over. If it’s in order, we’ll want you to sign it. If it’s not, you’ll no doubt help us by putting it right. You’ve acted very properly throughout, as I’m sure Mr. Williams and Sergeant Noakes will be the first to agree.”

“There you are,” Williams said. “No complaints.”

Huffily reassured, the men retired. “The first thing I’d like to know, Bob,” Alleyn said, “is what the devil’s been going on round this dump? Look at it. You’d think the whole village had been holding Mayday revels over it. Women in evening shoes, women in brogues. Men in heavy shoes, men in light shoes, and the whole damn’ mess overtrodden, of course, by working boots. Most of it went on before the event, all of it except the boots, I fancy, but what the hell was it about?”

“Some sort of daft party,” Williams said. “Cavorting through the village, they were. We’ve had complaints. It was up at the Big House: Baynesholme Manor.”

“One of Lady Bantling’s little frolics,” Dr. Elkington observed dryly. “It seems to have ended in a dogfight. I was called out at two-thirty to bandage her husband’s hand. They’d broken up by then.”

“Can you be talking about Désirée, Lady Bantling?”

“That’s the lady. The main object of the party was a treasure hunt, I understand,”

“A hideous curse on it,” Alleyn said heartily. “We’ve about as much hope of disentangling anything useful in the way of footprints as you’d get in a wine press. How long did it go on?”

“The noise abated before I went to bed,” Dr. Elkington said, “which was at twelve. As I’ve mentioned, I was dragged out again.”

“Well, at least we’ll be able to find out if the planks and lantern were untouched until then. In the meantime we’d better go through the hilarious farce of keeping our own boots off the area under investigation.…What’s this?…Wait a jiffy.”

He was standing near the end of one of the drainpipes. It lay across a slight depression that looked as if it had been scooped out. From this he drew a piece of blue letter paper. Williams looked over his shoulder. “Poytry,” Williams said disgustedly. The two lines had been amateurishly typed. Alleyn read them aloud.

“Elegant, I must say!” Dr. Elkington ejaculated.

“That’ll be a clue, no doubt,” Fox said and Alleyn gave it to him.

“I wish the rest of the job were as explicit,” he remarked.

“What,” Williams asked, “do you make of it, Alleyn? Any chance of accident?”

“What do you think yourself?”

“I’d say, none.”

“And so would I. Take a look at it. The planks had been dragged forward until the ends were only just supported by the lip of the bank. There’s one print, the deceased’s by the look of it, on the original traces of the planks before they were moved. It suggests that he came through the gate, where the path is hard and hasn’t taken an impression. I think he had his torch in his left hand. He stepped on the trace and then on the planks, which gave under him. I should say he pitched forward as he fell, dropping his torch, and one of the planks pitched back, striking him in the face. That’s guesswork, but I think, Elkington, that when he’s cleaned up you’ll find the nose is broken. As he was face down in the mud, the plank seems a possible explanation. All right. The lantern was suspended from an iron stanchion. The stanchion had been driven into the earth at an angle and overhung the edge between the displaced drainpipe and its neighbour. And, by the way, it seems to have been jammed in twice: there’s a second hole nearby. The lantern would be out of reach for him and he couldn’t have grabbed at it. How big is the dog?”

“What’s that?” Williams asked, startled.

“Prints that have escaped the boots of the drainlayers suggest a large dog.”

“Pixie,” said Sergeant Noakes, who had been silent for a considerable time.

“Oh!” said Superintendent Williams disgustedly. “Her.”

“It’s a dirty great mongrel of a thing, Mr. Alleyn,” Noakes offered. “The deceased gentleman called it a boxer. He was in the habit of bringing it out here before he went to bed, which was at one o’clock, regular as clockwork. It’s a noisy brute. There have been,” Noakes added, sounding a leitmotif, “complaints about Pixie.”

“Pixie,” Alleyn said, “must be an athletic girl. She jumped the ditch. There are prints if you can sort them out. But have a look at Cartell’s right hand, Elkington, would you?”

Dr. Elkington did so. “There’s a certain amount of contusion,” he said, “with ridges. And at the edges of the palm, well-defined grooves.”

“How about a leather leash, jerked tight?”

“It might well be.”

“Now the stanchion, Fox.”

Fox leant over from his position on the hard surface of the lane. He carefully lifted and removed the stanchion. Handling it as if it were some fragile objet d’art, he said: “There are traces, Mr. Alleyn. Lateral rubbings. Something dragged tight and then pulled away might be the answer.”

“So it’s at least possible that as Cartell dropped, Pixie jumped the drain. The lead jerked. Pixie entangled herself with the stanchion, pulled it loose, freed herself from it and from the hand that had led her, and made off. The lantern fell in the drain. Might be. Where is Pixie, does anyone know?”

“Shall I inquire at the house?” Noakes asked.

“It can wait. All this is the most shameless conjecture, really.”

“To me,” Williams said, considering it, “it seems likely enough.”

“It’ll do to go on with. But it doesn’t explain,” Alleyn said, “why the wick in the lantern’s been turned hard off, does it?”

“Is that a fact!” Noakes remarked, primly.

“This stanchion…” said Williams, who had been looking at it. “Have you noticed the lower point? You’d expect it to come out of the soil clean, or else dirty all round. But it’s dirty on one side and sort of scraped clean on the other.”

“You’ll go far in the glorious profession of your choice.”

“Come off it!” said Williams, who had done part of his training with Alleyn.

“Look at the ground where that great walloping pipe was laid out. That at least is not entirely obliterated by boots. See the scars in the earth on this side? Slanting holes with a scooped depression on the near side.”

“What of them?”

“Try it, Fox.”

Fox, who was holding the stanchion by its top, laid the pointed end delicately in one of the scars. “Fits,” he said. “There’s your lever, I reckon.”

“If so, the mud on one side was scraped off on the pipe. Wrap it up and lay it by. The flash-and-dabs boys will be here any moment now. We’ll have to take casts, Br’er Fox.”

Dr. Elkington said: “What’s all this about the stanchion?”

“We’re wondering if it was used as a lever for the drainpipe. We’re not very likely to find anything on the pipe itself, after the rough handling it’s been given, but it’s worth trying.”

He walked to the end of the drain, returned on the far side to the solitary pipe and squatted, beside it. Presently he said: “There are marks — scrapings — same distance apart, at a guess. I think we’ll find they fill the bill.”

When he had rejoined the others, he stood for a moment and surveyed the scene. A capful of wind blew down Green Lane, snatched at a corner of the tarpaulin and caused it to ripple very slightly, as if Mr. Cartell had stirred. Fox attended to it, tucking it under, with a macabre suggestion of coziness.

Alleyn said: “If ever it behooved us to keep open minds about a case it behooves us to do so over this one. My reading, so far, may be worth damn’-all, but such as it is I’ll make you a present of it…

“On the surface appearance it looks to me as though this was a premeditated job and was carried out with the minimum of fancywork. Some time before Cartell tried to cross it, the plank bridge was pulled towards the road side of the drain until the further ends rested on the extreme edge. The person who did this then put out the light in the lantern, and hid: very likely by lying down on the hard surface alongside one of the pipes. The victim came out with his dog on a leash. He stepped on the bridge, which collapsed. He was struck in the face by a plank and stunned. The leash bit into his right hand before it was jerked free. The dog jumped the drain, possibly got itself mixed up with the iron stanchion and, if so, probably dislodged the lantern, which fell into the drain. The concealed person came back, used the stanchion as a lever and rolled the drainpipe into the drain. It fell fourteen feet on his victim and killed him. He — Hullo! What’s that?”

He leant forward, peering into the ditch: “This looks like something,” he sighed. “Down, I fear, into the depths I go.”

“I will, sir.” Fox offered.

“You keep your great boots out of this,” Alleyn rejoined cheerfully.

He placed the foot of the steel ladder near the place vhere the body was found and climbed down it. The drain sweated dank water and smelt sour and disgusting. From where he stood, on the bottom rung, he pulled out his flashlight.

From above they saw him stoop and reach under the plank that rested against the wall.

When he came up he carried something wrapped in his handkerchief. He knelt and laid his improvised parcel on the ground.

“Look at this,” he said and they gathered about him.

He unfolded his handkerchief.

On it lay a gold case, very beautifully worked. It had a jewelled clasp and was smeared with slime.

“His?” Williams said.

“Or somebody else’s?…I wonder.”

They stared at it in silence. Alleyn was about to wrap it again when they were startled by a loud, shocking and long-drawn-out howl.

About fifty yards away, sitting in the middle of the lane in an extremely dishevelled condition, with a leash dangling from her collar, was a half-bred boxer bitch, howling lamentably.

“Pixie,” said Noakes.

They met with difficulty trying to catch Pixie. If addressed she writhed subserviently, threshed her tail, and whined. If approached she sprang aside, ran a short distance in a craven manner, sat down again, and began alternately to bark and howl.

The five men whistled, stalked, ran and cursed, all to no avail. “She’ll rouse the whole bloody village at this rate,” Superintendent Williams lamented, and indeed several persons had collected beyond the cars at the road barrier.

Alleyn and Dr. Elkington tried a scissors movement, Noakes and Williams an ill-conceived form of indirect strategy. Fox made himself hot and cross in a laughable attempt to jump upon Pixie’s lead and all had come to nothing before they were aware of the presence of a small, exceedingly pale man in an alpaca jacket on the far side of Mr. Period’s gate. It was Alfred Belt.

How long he had been there it was impossible to say. He was standing quite still with his well-kept hands on the top of the gate and his gaze directed respectfully at Alleyn.

“If you will allow me, sir,” he said. “I think I may be able to secure the dog.”

“For God’s sake do,” Alleyn rejoined.

Alfred whistled. Pixie, with a travesty of canine archness, cocked her head on one side. “Here, girl,” Alfred said disgustedly. “Meat.” She loped round the top end of the drain and ran along the fence towards him. “You bitch,” he said dispassionately as she fawned upon him.

Superintendent Williams, red with his exertions, formally introduced Alfred across the drain. Alfred said: “Good morning, sir. Mr. Period has asked me to present his compliments and to say that if there is anything you require he hopes you will call upon him.”

“Thank you,” Alleyn rejoined. “I was going to. In about five minutes. Will you tell him?”

“Certainly, sir,” Alfred said and withdrew.

Alleyn said to Williams: “When the flash-and-dabs lot turn up, ask them to cover the whole job, will you, Bob? Everything. I’ll be in the house if I’m wanted. You know the story and can handle this end of it better than I. I’d be glad if you’d stay in.”

It was by virtue of such gestures as these that Alleyn maintained what are known as “good relations” with the county forces. Williams said: “Be pleased to,” and filled out his jacket.

Dr. Elkington said: “What about the body?”

“Could you arrange for it to be taken to the nearest mortuary? Sir James Curtis will do the p.m. and will be hoping to see you. He’ll be here by midday.”

“I’ve laid on the ambulance. The mortuary’s at Rimble.”

“Good. Either Fox or I will look you up at the Station at noon. There’s one other thing. What do you make of that?” He walked a few paces up the lane and pointed to a large damp patch on the surface. “There was no rain last night and it’s nothing to do with the digging. Looks rather as if a car with a leaky radiator had stood there. Might even have been filled up and overflowed. Damn this hard surface. Yes, look. There’s a bit of oil there, too, where the sump might well have dripped. Ah, well, it may not amount to a row of beans. Ready, Fox? Let’s go in through the side gate, shall we?”

They fetched a circuitous course round the drain and entered Mr. Period’s garden by the side gate. Near the house, Alleyn noticed a standpipe with a detached hose coiled up beside it and a nearby watering can from which the rose had been removed.

“Take a look at this, Br’er Fox,” he said and indicated a series of indentations about the size of sixpence leading to and from the standpipe.

“Yes,” Fox said. “And the can’s been moved and replaced.”

“That’s right. And who, in this predominantly male household, gardens in stiletto heels? Ah, well! Come on.”

They walked round the house to the front door, where Alfred formally admitted them.

“Mr. Period is in the library, sir,” he said. “May I take your coat?”

Fox, who, being an innocent snob, always enjoyed the treatment accorded to his senior officer on these occasions, placidly removed his own coat.

“What,” Alleyn asked Alfred, “have you done with the dog?”

“Shut her up, sir, in the woodshed. She ought never to have been let loose.”

“Quite so. Will you let me have her leash?”

“Sir?”

“The lead. Inspector Fox will pick it up. Will you, Fox? And join us in the library?”

Alfred inclined his head, straightened his arms, turned his closed hands outward from the wrists and preceded Alleyn to the library door.

“Mr. Roderick Alleyn, sir,” he announced.

It was perhaps typical of him that he omitted the rank and inserted the Christian name. “Because, after all, Mrs. M,” he expounded later on to his colleague, “whatever opinions you and I may form on the subject, class is class and to be treated as such. In the Force he may be, and with distinction. Of it, he is not.”

Mrs. Mitchell put this detestable point of view rather more grossly. “The brother’s a baronet,” she said. “And childless, at that. I read it in the News of the World. ‘The Handsome Super,’ it was called. Fancy!”

Meanwhile Alleyn was closeted with Mr. Pyke Period, who, in a different key, piped the identical tune.

“My dear Alleyn,” he said. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you. If anything could lessen the appalling nature of this calamity it would be the assurance that we are in your hands.” There followed, inevitably, the news that Mr. Period was acquainted with Alleyn’s brother and was also an ardent admirer of Alleyn’s wife’s paintings. “She won’t remember an old backwater buster like me,” he said, wanly arch, “but I have had the pleasure of meeting her.”

All this was said hurriedly and with an air of great anxiety. Alleyn wondered if Mr. Period’s hand was normally as tremulous as it was this morning or his speech as breathless and uneven. As soon as Alleyn decently could, he got the conversation on a more formal basis.

He asked Mr. Period how long Mr. Cartell had been sharing the house, and learned that it was seven weeks. Before that Mr. Cartell had lived in London, where he had been the senior partner of an extremely grand and vintage firm of solicitors, from which position he had retired upon his withdrawal into the country. The family, Mr. Period said, came originally from Gloucestershire — Bloodstone Parva, in the Cotswolds. Having got as far as this he pulled himself up short and, unaccountably, showed great uneasiness.

Alleyn asked him when he had last seen Mr. Cartell.

“Ah — yesterday evening. I dined out. At Baynesholme. Before the party.”

“The treasure hunt?”

“You’ve heard about it? Yes. I saw them start and then I came home. He was in his room, then, walking about and talking to that — his dog. Great heavens!” Mr. Period suddenly exclaimed.

“What is it?”

“Désirée — his — Lady Bantling, you know! And Andrew! They must be told, I suppose. I wonder if Connie has thought of it — but no! No, she would hardly — My dear Alleyn, I beg your pardon, but it has only just struck me.” He explained, confusedly, the connection between Baynesholme and Mr. Cartell, and looked distractedly at his watch. “They will be here at any moment. My secretary — a delightful gel — and Andrew, who is to drive her. I suggested an eleven o’clock start as it was to be such a very late party.”

By dint of patient questioning, Alleyn got this sorted out. He noticed that Mr. Period kept feeling in his pockets. Then, apparently recollecting himself, he would look about the room. He opened a cigarette box, and when he found it empty ejaculated pettishly.

Alleyn said: “I wonder if you’ll let me give you a cigarette and smoke one myself? It’s all wrong, of course, for a policeman on duty—” He produced his case.

“My dear Alleyn! Thank you. Do. Do. So will I. But I should have offered you one long ago, only with all this upset Alfred hasn’t filled the boxes and — it’s too tiresome — I’ve mislaid my case.”

“Really? Not lost, I hope.”

“I–I hope not,” he said hurriedly. “It’s all very unfortunate, but never mind.” And again he showed great uneasiness.

“It’s infuriating to lose a good case,” Alleyn remarked. “I did myself, not long ago. It was a rather special and very old one and I regret it.”

“So is this,” Mr. Period said abruptly. “A cardcase.” He seemed to be in two minds whether to go on and then decided against it.

Alleyn said: “When you saw Mr. Cartell last evening was he his usual self? Nothing had happened to upset him at all?”

This question, also, produced a flurried reaction. “Upset? Well — it depends upon what one means by ‘upset.’ He was certainly rather put out, but it was nothing that could remotely be related…” Mr. Period fetched up short and appeared to summon all his resources. When he spoke again it was with very much more reserve and control. “You would not,” he said, “ask me a question of that sort, I think, unless you felt that this dreadful affair was not to be resolved by — by a simple explanation.”

“Oh,” Alleyn said lightly, “we needn’t put it as high as that, you know. If he was at all agitated or absent-minded, he might not be as careful as usual when he negotiated the bridge over the ditch. The dog—”

“Ah!” Mr. Period exclaimed. “The dog! Now, why on earth didn’t one think of the dog before! It is — she — I assure you, Alleyn, a most powerful and undisciplined dog. At the moment, I am given to understand, particularly so. May she not have taken one of those great plunging leaps of hers, possibly across the drain, and dragged him into it? May she not have done that?”

“She seems, at least, to have taken a great plunging leap.”

“There! You see?”

“She would also,” Alleyn said, “have had to dislodge a walloping big drainpipe and precipitate it into the ditch.”

Mr. Period put his hands over his eyes. “It’s so horrible!” he said faintly. “It’s so unspeakably horrible.” And then, withdrawing his hands, “But may she not have done precisely that very thing?”

“It’s — not very likely, I’m afraid.”

Mr, Period stared at him. “You don’t think it was an accident,” he said. “Don’t bother to say anything. I can see you don’t.”

“I’ll be very glad if I find reason to change my opinion.”

“But why? Why not accident? That dog, now: she is dangerous. I’ve told him so over and over again.”

“There are certain appearances: things that don’t quite tally. We must clear them up before we can come to any conclusion. There must, of course, be an inquest. And that is why,” Alleyn said, cheerfully, “I shall have to ask you any number of questions all of which will sound ridiculous and most of which, I daresay, will turn out to be just that and no more.”

It was at this juncture that Fox joined them, his excessively bland demeanour indicating, to Alleyn at least, that he had achieved his object and secured Pixie’s leash. The interview continued. Fox, as usual, managed to settle himself behind the subject and to take notes quite openly and yet entirely unnoticed. He had a talent for this sort of thing.

Mr. Period’s conversation continued to be jumpy and disjointed, but gradually a fairly comprehensive picture of his ménage emerged. Alleyn heard of Cartell’s sister, who was, of course, deeply shocked. “One of those red women who don’t normally seem to feel anything except the heat,” Mr. Period said oddly. “Never wear gloves. And look, don’t you know, as if they never sit on anything but their hats or a shooting-stick. But I assure you she’s dreadfully cut up, poor Connie.”

Alleyn felt that Mr. Period had invented this definition of Miss Cartell long ago and was so much in the habit of letting fly with it that it had escaped him involuntarily.

“I mustn’t be naughty,” Mr. Period said unhappily. “Poor Connie!” And looked exquisitely uncomfortable.

“Apart from Miss Cartell and Lady Bantling, who I suppose is in one sense a connection, or an ex-connection, are there any near relations?”

“None that one would call near. It’s an old family,” Mr. Period said with a pale glance at his ruling passion, “but going — going. Indeed, I fancy he and Connie are the last. Sad.”

Alleyn said: “I’m afraid I shall have to ask you for an account of yesterday’s activities. I really am very sorry to pester you like this when you’ve had such a shock, but there it is. Duty, duty must be done.”

Mr. Period brightened momentarily at this Gilbertian reference and even dismally hummed the tune, but the next second he was in the doldrums again. He worked backwards through the events of the previous day, starting with his own arrival in the lane, driven by Lady Bantling, at twenty past eleven. The plank bridge over the drain had supported him perfectly: the lamp was alight. As he approached the house he saw Mr. Cartell at his bedroom window, which was wide open. Mr. Cartell never, Mr. Period explained, went to bed before one o’clock, when he took Pixie out, but he often pottered about his room for hours before he retired. Alleyn thought he detected a note of petulance and also of extreme reticence.

“I think,” Mr. Period said restlessly, “that Hal must have heard me coming home. He was at his window. He seemed — ah — he seemed to be perfectly well.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“I — ah — I—ah — I did just call out something after I came upstairs. He replied…I don’t remember…However!”

Mr. Period himself, it transpired, had gone to bed, but not to sleep, as the arrival and departure of treasure hunters in the lane was disturbing. However, the last couple had gone before midnight and he had dozed off.

“Did you wake again?”

“That’s what’s so appalling to think of. I did. At one o’clock, when he took Pixie out. She made the usual disturbance, barking and whining. I heard it. I’m afraid I cursed it. Then it stopped.”

“And did you go to sleep again?”

“Yes. Yes, I did. Yes.”

“Were you disturbed again?”

Mr. Period opened his mouth and remained agape for some seconds and then said, “No.”

“Sure?”

“Nobody disturbed me,” Mr. Period said, and looked perfectly wretched.

Alleyn took him back through the day. It was with reluctance that he was brought to admit that Mr. Cartell had entertained his sister and two acquaintances at luncheon. As an afterthought he remarked that Lady Bantling and her son, Andrew Bantling, had been there for drinks.

“Who,” Alleyn asked, “were the acquaintances?” He was told, sketchily, about Mary Ralston, Miss Cartell’s ward, and her friend, Leonard Leiss. At the Yard, Alleyn was often heard to lament the inadequacy of his memory, an affectation which was tolerantly indulged by his colleagues. His memory was in fact like any other senior detective officer’s, very highly trained, and in this instance it at once recalled the paragraph in the Police Gazette of some months ago in which the name and portrait-parlé of Leonard Leiss had appeared, together with an account of his activities — which were varied and dubious. He had started life in Bermondsey, shown some promise, achieved grammar school status and come under the protection of a benevolent spinster whom he subsequently robbed and deserted. This episode was followed by an association with a flick-knife gang and an interval of luxury spent with a lady of greater wealth than discretion and employment as a chauffeur with forged-references. There had been two convictions. Passes himself off, the Police Gazette had concluded, as a person of superior social status.

“Is Mr. Leiss,” Alleyn asked, “a young man of about twenty-seven? Dark, of pale complexion, rather too smartly dressed, and wearing a green ring on the signet finger?”

“Oh, dear!” Mr. Period said helplessly. “I suppose Noakes has told you. Yes. Alas, he is!”

After that it was not hard to induce a general lament upon the regrettability of Leonard. Although Sergeant Noakes had in fact not yet reported the affair of the Scorpion sports car, Mr. Period either took it for granted that he had done so or recognized the inevitability of coming round to it before long. He said enough for Alleyn to get a fair idea of what had happened. Leonard, Mr. Period concluded, was a really rather dreadful young person whom it would be the greatest mistake to encourage.

“When I tell you, my dear fellow, that he leant back in his chair at luncheon and positively whistled! Sang even! I promise. And the girl joined in! A terrible fellow. Poor Connie should have sent him packing at the first glance.”

“Mr. Cartell thought so too, I daresay?”

“Oh, yes!” said Mr. Period, waving it away. “Yes, indeed. Oh, rather!”

“To your knowledge, had he any enemies? That sounds melodramatic, but had he? Or, to put it another way, do you know of anyone to whom he might have done any damage if he had lived?”

There was a long pause. From the lane came the sound of a car in low gear. Alleyn could see through the window that a canvas screen had been erected. His colleagues, evidently, had arrived.

“I’m just trying to think,” said Mr. Period. He turned sheet-white. “Not in the sense you mean. No. Unless — but, no.”

“Unless?”

“You see, Alleyn, one does follow you. One does realize the implication.”

“Naturally,” Alleyn said. “It’s perfectly obvious, I’m sure. If a trap was laid for Mr. Cartell last night, I should like to know if there’s anyone who might have had some motive in laying it.”

“A booby-trap, for instance?” He stared at Alleyn, his rather prominent front teeth closed over his under-lip. “Of course I don’t know what you’ve found. I–I—had to go out there and — and identify him; but frankly, it distressed me very much and I didn’t notice…But — had, for instance, the planks over the ditch — had they been interfered with?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

“Oh, my God! I see. Well, then: might it not all have been meant for a joke? A very silly, dangerous one, but still no more than a booby-trap? Um? Some of those young people in the treasure hunt. Yes!” Mr. Period ejaculated. “Now, isn’t that a possibility? Someone had moved the planks and poor Harold fell, you know, and perhaps he knocked himself out and then, while he was lying unconscious, may not a couple — they hunted in couples — have come along and — and inadvertently dislodged the drainpipe?”

“You try dislodging one of those pipes,” Alleyn said. “It could scarcely be done inadvertently, I think.”

“Then — then: even done deliberately out of sheer exuberance and not knowing he was there. A prank! One of those silly pranks. They were a high-spirited lot.”

“I wonder if you can give me their names?”

As most of them had come from the County, Mr. Period was able to do this. He got up to twenty-four, said he thought that was all, and then boggled.

“Was there somebody else?”

“In point of fact — yes. By a piece of what I can only describe, I’m afraid, as sheer effrontery, the wretched Leiss and that tiresome gel, Mary Ralston, got themselves asked. Désirée is quite too hopelessly good-natured. Now he,” Mr. Period said quickly, “in my opinion, would certainly be capable of going too far—capable de tout. But I shouldn’t say that. No. All the same, Alleyn, an accident resulting from some piece of comparatively innocent horseplay would not be as appalling as — as—”

“As murder?”

Mr. Period flung up his hands. “Alas!” he said. “Yes. Of course, I’ve no real knowledge of how you go to work, but you’ve examined the ground, no doubt. One reads of such astonishing deductions. Perhaps I shouldn’t ask.”

“Why not?” Alleyn said amiably. “The answer’s regrettably simple. At the moment, there are no deductions, only circumstances. And in point of fact there’s nothing, as far as we’ve gone, to contradict your theory of a sort of double-barrelled piece of hooliganism. Somebody gets the enchanting idea of rearranging the planks. Somebody else gets the even more amusing idea of dislodging a main sewer pipe. The victim of the earlier jeu d’esprit, by an unfortunate coincidence, becomes the victim of the second.”

“Of course, if you put it like that…”

“Coincidences do happen with unbelievable frequency. I sometimes think they’re the occupational hazards of policework. So far, for all we’ve seen, there’s no reason to suppose that Mr. Cartell has not been the victim of one of them. Unless,” Alleyn said, “you count this.”

He had a very quick, dexterous way of using his hands. With the least possible amount of fuss he had produced, laid upon Mr. Period’s writing desk and lightly unfolded from his handkerchief, the gold case with a jewelled clasp. “I’m afraid,” he said, “I shall have to keep it for the time being. But can you identify it?”

Mr. Period gave a stifled ejaculation and got to his feet.

At the same moment there was a tap on the door, which at once opened to admit a girl and a tall young man.

“I’m so sorry,” Nicola said, “the front door was open and we thought — I’m awfully sorry.” She stopped short, catching sight of the gold case lying on the handkerchief. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “I am glad. Your lovely cigarette case! You’ve found it!”

“Ah — yes,” Mr. Period said with a little gasp. “Yes. It — it would appear so.” He pulled himself’ together. “Nicola, my dear,” he said, “may I introduce—”

“But we’ve met!” Nicola cried. “Often. Haven’t we? I was talking about you only yesterday. Bless my soul,” she added gaily. “Who, to coin a phrase, would have thought of meeting you?”

“To coin another,” Alleyn said mildly, “it’s quite coincidence, isn’t it? Hullo, Nicola.”

“Put it like this,” Alleyn said. “I don’t say you’ll ever have to, but suppose you were asked to swear on oath that the window was shut during the luncheon-Pixie episode, would you do it?”

Nicola said: “I’d have to, wouldn’t I? Because it was.”

“Not a shadow of doubt?”

“Not one. Alfred will say the same.”

“I dare say.”

“I wish I knew what you were up to,” Nicola said, staring out into the garden.

“I? I’m on my job.”

“Yes, but are you peering into petty larceny or mucking into a — I’m sure I don’t know why I’m trying to be facetious — into a murder? Or do they tie in together? Or what?”

“I don’t know. No more than you do.”

“I suppose,” Nicola said with some penetration, “you’re not very pleased to find me here.”

“Not as enchanted as I would be to find you elsewhere.”

“It’s funny. Because, before this blew up, I was thinking of Troy. I’m coming in tomorrow evening and I wondered if I could bring a young man with me.”

“My dear child, she’ll be delighted. Do I detect—”

“No!” Nicola said in a hurry. “You don’t detect anything. He paints.”

“Ah. Mr. Andrew Bantling?”

“I suppose you spotted the paint under his fingernail.”

“So I did. It reminded me of my wife.”

“That sounds human, anyway.”

Alleyn said: “Look here, Nicola, we’ll have to keep all this on an aseptically impersonal basis, you know. I’ve got to look into a case that may well involve something that is generally called a serious charge. You, unfortunately, may be a relevant witness. I wish it wasn’t like that, but it is. O.K.?”

“Do I have to call you Superintendent?”

“You needn’t call me anything. Now, let’s press on, shall we? I’m bringing Mr. Fox in to take notes.”

“Lor!” Nicola looked at him for a moment and then said: “Yes, O.K. I won’t be tiresome. I do see.”

“Of course you do.”

Fox came in and was introduced.

In great detail Alleyn led her through the events of the past twenty-four hours, and as he did so it seemed to Nicola that she grew physically colder. Her relationship with the Alleyns was something that she had taken for granted. Without realizing that she did so, she had depended upon them, as the young do with established friends, for a sort of anchorage. They were old enough to give her a feeling of security and young enough, she felt, to “understand.” She had been free to turn up at their London house when she felt like it and was one of the few people that Alleyn’s wife could endure in the studio when she was working. With Alleyn himself, Nicola had progressed by way of a schoolgirl crush, from which she had soon managed to recover, into solid affection. She called him “Le Cid,” shortened it into “Cid,” and by this time had forgotten the origin of the pun.

Now, here he was, C.I.D. in action, being friendly enough: considerate and impersonal, but she had to face it, quietly panic-striking. She began to see him in headline terms. “Superintendent Alleyn interviews Society Secretary.”

“Don’t,” Alleyn’s voice said, “go fussing yourself with unnecessary complications. Be as objective as you can and it’ll all pass off very quietly. Where had we got to? Ah, yes. You’ve arrived. You’ve started on your job. You’re assisting at the pre-luncheon-drinks party. This consists of Mr. Cartell; his sister, Miss Constance Cartell; his former wife, the soi-disante Lady Bantling; her present husband, Mr. Bimbo Dodds; her son by her first marriage, Mr. Andrew Bantling; Miss Cartell’s adopted niece or what-not, what’s she called — Miss Mary or Moppett — what?”

“Ralston, I think.”

“That’s right. And the Moppett’s boyfriend, Mr. Leonard Leiss. And of course, Mr. Period. So we have the piquant situation of a lady with two husbands, a young man with two stepfathers, and a brother and sister with a courtesy niece. How did the party go?”

“Not with a swing,” Nicola said.

“Because of the muddled relationships, would you say?”

“No. They seem to take those in their stride.”

“Because of what, then?”

“Well — Moppett and Leonard, principally. Leonard really is a monster.”

“What sort? Beatnik? Smart-alec? Bounder? Straight-out cad? Or just plain nasty?”

“All except the beatnik. He’s as clean as a whistle and smells dreadfully of lilies.”

“Not Period’s cup of tea. Or, I should have thought, Cartell’s.”

“Indeed not. He and Moppett were self-invited. Or rather, I think Moppett had bludgeoned poor Miss Cartell into getting them there.”

“Why ‘poor’?”

“Did I say ‘poor’?” Nicola exclaimed, surprised at herself. “I suppose because I sort of felt she was vulnerable.”

“Go on.”

“Well — she’s one of those clumsy women who sound arrogant but probably hoot and roar their way through life to cover up their shyness. I expect she’s tried to compensate for her loneliness by pouring all her affection into Moppett. What a hope, poor darling!”

“O wise young judge,” Alleyn murmured and Nicola wondered how much he was laughing at her.

“Can you remember,” he asked, “any of the conversation?”

“At lunch it was about Pixie and Miss Cartell saying she was a mongrel and Mr. Cartell turning huffy and about a car Leonard had seen in the local garage — I don’t remember—”

“We know about the car. What else?”

“Well: about poor Mr. Period’s favourite thing: family grandeur and blue blood and noblesse oblige. I’m sure he didn’t mean to have digs at Leonard and Moppett, but it came over like that. And then Mr. Cartell told a story about someone who cooked a baptismal record to pretend he was blue-blooded when he wasn’t, and that didn’t exactly ring out like a peal of joybells, although Leonard seemed quite interested. And then there was the Pixie episode and then the cigarette-case thing.” She elaborated on these themes.

“Plenty of incident throughout. What about the pre-luncheon party? Young Bantling, for instance? How did he fit in? Did he seem to get on quite well with his senior stepfather?”

Nicola was aware of silence: the silence of Mr. Period’s drawing-room, which had been given over to Alleyn. There was the alleged Cotman water colour in its brown paper wrappings. There were the unexceptionable chairs and curtains. Outside the windows was the drive, down which Andrew had walked so angrily, swinging his hat. And upstairs, somewhere, was dead Mr. Cartell’s room, where Andrew’s voice had shouted yesterday morning.

“What’s the matter?” Alleyn said.

“Nothing. He didn’t stay for lunch. He lunched at Baynesholme.”

“But he came here, with you, from the station, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And stayed here until his mother and her husband called for him?”

“Yes. At least—”

“Yes?”

“He went out for a bit. I saw him go down the drive.”

“What did he do while he was here?”

“I think he saw Mr. Cartell. Mr. Cartell’s his guardian and a trustee for his inheritance as well as his stepfather. And Mr. Period’s the other trustee.”

“Did you gather that it was a business call?”

“Something of the sort. He talked to both of them.”

“About what, do you know?”

Could Nicola hear or did she only feel, the thud of her heart?

“Do you know?” Alleyn repeated.

“Only roughly. He’d tell you himself.”

“You think he would?”

“Why not?”

“He told you about it?”

“A bit. But it was — it was sort of confidential. In a way.”

“Why are you frightened, Nicola?” Alleyn asked gently.

“I’m not. It’s just that…well, the whole thing’s rather a facer. What’s happened, I suppose I’ve got a bit of a delayed shock or something.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “It might, of course, be that.”

He rose and looked down at her from his immoderate height. “As my maiden aunt said to her cat: ‘I can accept the urge and I can deal with the outcome: what I cannot endure are these pointless preliminaries!’ She ought to have been in the C.I.D.”

“What am I supposed to make of that?”

“Don’t have kittens before they’re hatched. And for pity’s sake don’t hedge or shuffle: that never did anybody any good. Least of all your young man.”

“He is not my young man. I only met him yesterday.”

“Even so quickly may one catch the plague. Did you stay here last night?”

“No. I was at Baynesholme for a party.”

“Not Désirée Bantling’s party!” Alleyn ejaculated.

“Yes, but it wasn’t the sort you mean. It was a lovely party,” said Nicola, looking mistily at him. She described it.

“Any unforeseen incidents?”

“Only Moppett and Leonard, who practically gatecrashed. And Pixie, of course.”

“What? What about Pixie?”

Nicola told him. “Pixie,” she added, “bit Bimbo. He had to go and have his hand bandaged.”

“You wouldn’t,” Alleyn asked, “know what time it was when Pixie staged this show?”

“Yes, I would,” Nicola said promptly and blushed. “It was a little after one o’clock.”

“How do you know?”

“We got back at half-past twelve from the treasure hunt. It was not much more than half an hour after that.”

“We?”

“Andrew and I. We hunted in pairs.”

“I thought you said you all had to be in by midnight?”

“All right. Yes, we were meant to. But Andrew thought the treasure hunt was pretty tiresome, so we talked instead. He told me about his painting and somehow we didn’t notice.”

Nicola looked squarely at Alleyn. “It couldn’t matter less,” she said, “but I would like to mention that I did not have a casual affair with Andrew. We talked — and talked …”

Her voice faded on an indeterminate note. She was back at the end of Mr. Period’s lane, in Andrew’s draughty car, tucked up in Andrew’s old duffel coat that smelt of paint. The tips of their cigarettes glowed and waned. Every now and then a treasure hunter’s car would go hooting past and they would see the occupants get out and poke about the drainpipes and heaps of spoil, flicking their torches and giggling. And Andrew talked — and didn’t initiate any of the usual driver’s seat techniques but was nevertheless very close to her. And the moon had gone down and the stars were bright and everything in the world seemed brand-new and shining. She gave Alleyn the factual details of this experience.

“Do you remember,” he asked, “how many cars stopped by the drain or who any of the people were?”

“Not really. They were all new to me: lots of Nigels and Michaels and Sarahs and Davids and Gileses.”

“You could see them fairly clearly?”

“Fairly. There was a hurricane lantern shining on two planks across the ditch and they all had torches.”

“Any of them walk across the planks?”

“I think most of them. But the clue was under one of the drainpipes on the road side of the ditch. We’d see them find it and giggle over it and put it back and then go zooming off.”

“Anyone touch the planks? Look under the ends for the clue?”

“I don’t think so.” Nicola hesitated and then said: “I remember Leonard and Moppett. They were the last, and they hadn’t got a torch. He crossed the plank and stooped over as if he was looking in the ditch. I got the impression that they stared at us. There was something, I don’t know what, kind of furtive about him. I can see him now,” Nicola said, surprised at the vivid memory. “I think he had his hand inside his overcoat. The lamplight was on him. He turned his back to us. He stooped and straightened up. Then he recrossed the bridge and found the clue. They looked at it by the light of the lantern and he put it back and they drove away.”

“Was he wearing gloves?”

“Yes, he was. Light-coloured ones. Tight-fitting, wash leather, I should think: a bit too svelte — like everything else about Leonard.”

“Anything more?”

“No. At least — well, they didn’t sort of talk and laugh like the others. I don’t suppose any of this matters.”

“Don’t you, indeed? And then, you good, observant child?”

“Well, Andrew said: ‘Funny how ghastly they look even at this distance!’ And I said: ‘Like—’ No, it doesn’t matter.”

“Like what?”

“ ‘Like Grand Opera assassins’ was what I said, but it was a silly remark. Actually, they looked more like sneak thieves, but I can’t tell you why. It’s nothing.”

“And then?”

“Well, they were the last couple. You see, Andrew kept count, vaguely, because he thought it would be all right to continue our conversation as long as there were still hunters to come. But, before them, Lady Bantling and Mr. Period came past. She was driving him home. She stopped the car by the planks and I fancy she called out to a hunting couple that were just leaving. Mr. Period got out and said good night with his hat off, looking rather touching, poor sweet, and crossed the planks and went in by his side gate. And she turned the car.” Nicola stopped.

“What is it?”

“Well, you see, I–I don’t want—”

“All right. Don’t bother to tell me. You’re afraid of putting ideas into my head. How can I persuade you, Nicola, that it’s only by a process of elimination that I can get anywhere with this case? Incidents that look as fishy as hell to you may well turn out to be the means of clearing the very character you’re fussing about.”

“May they?”

“Now, look here. An old boy of, as far as we know, exemplary character, has been brutally and cunningly murdered. You think you can’t bring yourself to say anything that might lead to an arrest and its possible consequences. I understand and sympathize. But, my poor girl, will you consider for a moment the possible consequences of withholding information? They can be disastrous. They have led to terrible miscarriages of justice. You see, Nicola, the beastly truth is that if you are involved, however accidentally, in a crime of this sort, you can’t avoid responsibility.”

“I’m sorry. I suppose you’re right. But in this instance — about Lady Bantling, I mean — it’s nothing. It’ll sound disproportionate.”

“So will lots of other things that turn out to be of no consequence. Come on. What happened? What did she do?”

Nicola, it transpired, had a gift for reportage. She gave a clear account of what had happened. Alleyn could see the car turn in the lane and stop. After a pause the driver got out, her flaming hair haloed momentarily in the light of the lantern as she crossed the planks, walking carefully in her high heels. She had gone through Mr. Period’s garden gate and disappeared. There had been a light in an upper window. Andrew Bantling had said: “Hullo, what’s my incalculable mama up to?” They had heard quite distinctly the spatter of pebbles against the upper window. A figure in a dark gown had opened it, “Great grief!” Andrew had ejaculated. “That’s Harold! She’s doing a balcony scene in reverse! She must be tight.”

And indeed, Lady Bantling had, surprisingly, quoted from the play. “What light,” she had shouted, “from yonder window breaks?” and Mr. Cartell had replied irritably, “Good God, Désirée, what are you doing down there?”

Her next remark was in a lower tone and they had only caught the word “warpath,” to which he had rejoined: “Utter nonsense!”

“And then,” Nicola told Alleyn, “another light popped up and another window opened and Mr. Period looked out. It was like a Punch-and-Judy show. He said something rather plaintive that sounded like: ‘Is anything the matter?’ and Lady Bantling shouted: ‘Not a thing, go to bed, darling,’ and he said: ‘Well, really! How odd!’ and pulled down his blind. And then Mr. Cartell said something inaudible and Lady Bantling quite yelled: ‘Ha! Ha! You jolly well watch your step!’ And then he pulled his blind down and we saw her come out, cross the ditch, and get into the car. She drove past us and leant out of the driving window and said: ‘That was a tuppeny one. Don’t be too late, darlings!’ and went on. And Andrew said he wished he knew what the hell she was up to and soon after that we went back to the party. Leonard and Moppett had arrived.”

“Was Désirée Bantling, in fact, tight?”

“It’s hard to say. She was perfectly in order afterwards and acted with the greatest expedition, I must say, in the Pixie affair. She’s obviously,” Nicola said, “a law unto herself.”

“I believe you. You’ve drifted into rather exotic and dubious waters, haven’t you?”

“It was all right,” Nicola said quickly. “And Andrew’s not a bit exotic or dubious. He’s a quiet character. Honestly. You’ll see.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I’ll see. Thank you, Nicola.” Upon which the door of Mr. Period’s drawing-room burst open and Andrew, scarlet in the face, stormed in.

“Look here!” he shouted. “What the hell goes on? Are you grilling my girl?”

Alleyn, with one eyebrow cocked at Nicola, was crisp with Andrew. Nicola herself, struggling between exasperation and a maddening tendency to giggle, invited Andrew not to be an ass and he calmed down and presently apologized.

“I’m inclined to be quick-tempered,” he said with an air of self-discovery and an anxious glance at Nicola.

She cast her eyes up and, on Alleyn’s suggestion, left Andrew with him and went to the study. There she found Mr. Period in a dreadful state of perturbation, writing a letter.

“About poor old Hal,” he explained distractedly. “To his partner. One scarcely knows what to say.”

He implored Nicola to stay, and as she still had a mass of unassembled notes to attend to, she set to work on them in a strange condition of emotional uncertainty.

Alleyn had little difficulty with Andrew Bantling. He readily outlined his own problems, telling Alleyn about the Grantham Gallery and how Mr. Cartell had refused to let him anticipate his inheritance. He also confirmed Nicola’s account of their vigil in the car. “You don’t,” he said, “want to take any notice of my mama. She was probably a thought high. It would amuse her to bait Harold. She always does that sort of thing.”

“She was annoyed with him, I take it?”

“Well, of course she was. Livid. We both were.”

“Mr. Bantling,” Alleyn said, “your stepfather has been murdered.”

“So I feared,” Andrew rejoined. “Beastly, isn’t it? I can’t get used to the idea at all.”

“A trap was laid for him and when, literally, he fell into it, his murderer lowered an eight-hundred-pound drainpipe on him. It crushed his skull and drove him, face down, into the mud.”

The colour drained out of Andrew’s cheeks. “All right,” he said. “You needn’t go on. It’s loathsome. It’s too grotesque to think about.”

“I’m afraid we have to think about it. That’s all for the moment. Thank you.”

“Well, yes, All right, I see. Thank you.” Andrew fidgeted with his tie and then said: “Look: I daresay you think I’m being pretty callous about all this, but the fact is I just can’t assimilate it. It’s so unreal and beastly.”

“Murder is beastly. Unfortunately, it’s not unreal.”

“So it seems. Is it in order for me to go up to London? I’m meant to be on guard tomorrow. As a matter of fact I had thought of going up on business.”

“Important business?”

“Well — to me. I wanted to ask them to give me a few days’ grace over the Gallery.” He stared at Alleyn. “I suppose this will make a difference,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“And now you have thought of it…?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew said slowly. “It seems a bit low to think of it at all. I’d like to talk it over with Nicola. As a matter of fact—” He looked sideways at Alleyn. “I rather thought of coming back and then going up with her. After I’ve telephoned my mama, I suppose. I can’t imagine what she’ll make of all this, I must say.”

“Where are you going to be on guard?”

“The Tower,” Andrew said dismally.

“All right. We’ll get in touch if we want you.”

Leaving Andrew where he was, Alleyn had a discussion with Fox and Williams in Mr. Period’s garden, and checked the story of the cigarette case with Alfred. Then he crossed the Green to interview Miss Cartell.

She received him in her den. He found it a depressing room. Everything seemed to be the colour of mud.…Faded snapshots of meets, of foxhounds and of other canines covered the walls. On the desk, which was a shambles, were several framed photographs of a cagey-looking girl whom he supposed to be Moppett. The room smelt of dog, damp tweed and raw liver, this last being explained by a dish labeled Fido in which a Pekingese was noisily snuffling. It broke off to bare its needlelike teeth at Alleyn and make the noise of a toy kettledrum.

Miss Cartell sat with her hands on her knees, staring dolefully at him. Her left thumb was decorated with dirty, bloodstained cotton wool and stamp paper. She had evidently been crying.

“It’s pretty ghastly,” she said. “Poor old Boysie! I can’t take it in. He was a bit of an old maid, but a brother’s a brother. We didn’t see eye-to-eye over a lot of things, but still …”

Alleyn was visited by the fleeting wish that he could run into somebody who at least pretended to have liked Mr. Cartell.

“When,” he asked her, “did you last see him?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I do. Last evening. He came over here with that ghastly bitch. It upset Li-chi. They’re very highly strung animals, Pekes. He’s still nervous. Eat up, my poppet,” said Miss Cartell to the Pekingese. “Lovely livvy!”

She poked her finger temptingly in the raw liver.

“Eat up,” she said and wiped her finger on the Pekingese. Alleyn noticed that her hand was unsteady.

“Was it just a casual, friendly visit?” he asked.

Miss Cartell’s rather prominent blue eyes, slightly bloodshot, seemed to film over.

“He was taking the bitch for a walk,” she said, after a pause. “Brought it into the house, like a fool, and of course Li became hysterical and bit me, poor little chap. I’ve fixed it up with girth-gall stuff,” she added, “it smells a bit, but it’s good.”

“Did Mr. Cartell meet anybody else during his call, do you remember?”

With a manner that was at once furtive and anxious she said: “Not that I know. I mean I didn’t see anything.” She might have been a great elderly schoolgirl caught on the hop. “He was here when I came in,” she added. “I don’t know who he’d seen.”

“Miss Cartell,” Alleyn said, “I’m anxious to find out if your brother had any enemies. I expect that sounds rather melodramatic, but I’m afraid it’s unavoidable. Is there, do you know, anyone who had cause, for any reason, however trivial, to dislike or fear him?”

She waited much too long before she said: “No one in particular,” and then after a pause: “He wasn’t awfully popular, I suppose. I mean he didn’t make friends with people all that easily.” She reached down her blunt ill-kept hand to the Pekingese and fondled it. “He was a dry old stick,” she said. “You know. Typical solicitor: I used to tell him he had ink instead of blood in his veins.”

She broke into one of her ungainly laughs and blew her nose on a man’s handkerchief.

“There was a luncheon party,” Alleyn said, “wasn’t there? Yesterday, at Mr. Pyke Period’s house?”

Instead of answering him she suddenly blurted out: “But I thought it was an accident! The way they told me, it sounded like an accident.”

“Who told you?”

“P.P.” she said. “Alfred told him and he told me. He made it sound like an accident.”

“The odds against,” Alleyn said, “are considerable.”

“Why?”

Everything about her was dull: her face, her manner, her voice. He wondered if she was really attending to him.

“Because,” he said, “accident would imply at least two lots of people behaving independently like dangerous hoodlums at the same spot and with different objectives.”

“I don’t follow that,” said Miss Cartell.

“Never mind. Just tell me about the luncheon party. There were you and your adopted niece and Miss Nicola Maitland-Mayne and Mr. Leonard Leiss. And of course, your brother and Mr. Period. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you talk about?”

Nicola had given him a pretty full account of the luncheon party. Miss Cartell was much less explicit. She described the Pixie incident with one or two dismal hoots of retrospective laughter and she dwelt, disjointedly, upon Mr. Period’s references to blue blood and polite behaviour. She was clearly very ill-at-ease.

“He’s got a bee in his bonnet over that sort of thing,” she said. “My brother ragged him about it, and he got jolly ratty. You could see. Can’t take a joke.”

“What sort of joke?” Alleyn ventured.

“Well — I dunno. Some story about a baptismal register in a vestry. I didn’t listen.”

Alleyn asked her about the cigarette case and she at once exhibited all the classic signs of a clumsy and unaccustomed liar. She changed colour, avoided his glance and again fondled the unenthusiastic Pekingese.

“I didn’t notice anything about that,” she said. “He’d got the case. I didn’t know he’d lost it. He’s an old fuss-pot anyway.” The colour started out in blotches on her flattish cheeks. “He probably lost it himself,” she said, “muddling about.”

Alleyn said: “Miss Cartell, I’m sorry to badger you when you’ve had such a shock, but I’m sure you want to get this wretched business cleared up, don’t you?”

“Don’t know,” she countered. “Not if it’s going to lead to a lot of unpleasantness. Won’t bring poor old Boysie back, will it?”

Alleyn disregarded this. “Your adopted niece and a friend of hers, called Mr. Leiss, were at the luncheon, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said, staring at him. She seemed to be in two minds whether to go on. Then she said: “You don’t want to pay any attention to what P.P. says about them. He’s out of touch with the young. Expects them to behave like his generation: and a lot of pie-faced little humbugs they were, if you like.”

“Was there some talk of Mr. Leiss buying a car?”

She bent over the dog. “That’s enough,” she said to it. “You’ve had enough.” And then to Alleyn: “It all petered out. He didn’t buy it.”

The door opened and her Austrian maid came in with a letter.

“From Mr. Period, please,” she said. “The man left it.”

Miss Cartell seemed unwilling to take the letter. The maid put it on the desk at her elbow.

“All right, Trudi,” Miss Cartell mumbled. “Thank you,” and the maid went out.

“Pay no attention to me,” Alleyn said.

“It’ll wait.”

“Don’t you think, perhaps, you should look at it?”

She opened the letter unhandily, and as she read it turned white to the lips.

“What is it?” he asked. “Miss Cartell, what’s the matter?”

The letter was still quivering in her hands.

“He must be mad,” she said. “Mad!”

“May I see it?”

She seemed to consider this, but in an aimless sort of way as if she only gave him half her attention. When he took the sheet of paper from her fingers she suffered him to do so as if they were inanimate.

Alleyn read the letter.

Alleyn folded the paper and looked at Miss Cartell. “But why,” he said, “do you say that? Why do you say he must be mad?”

She waited so long, gaping at him like a fish, that he thought she would never answer. Then she made a fumbling inelegant gesture towards the letter.

“Because he must be,” she said. “Because it’s all happening twice. Because he’s written it before. The lot. Just the same.”

“You mean—? But when?”

“This morning,” Connie said and began rooting in the litter on her desk. “Before breakfast. Before I knew.”

She drew in her breath with a whistling noise. “Before everybody knew,” she said. “Before they had found him.”

She stared at Alleyn, nodding her head and holding out a sheet of letter paper.

“See for yourself,” she said miserably. “Before they had found him.”

Alleyn looked at the two letters. Except in a few small details they were, indeed, exactly the same.