Overture to Death

CHAPTER FOURTEEN According to the Jernighams

i

Alleyn went alone to Pen Cuckoo. He left Fox to visit Miss Campanula’s servants, find out the name of her lawyers, and pick up any grain of information that might be the fruit of his well-known way with female domestics.

The Biggins’s car chugged doggedly up the Vale Road in second gear. It was a stiff grade. The Vale rises steeply above Chipping, mounting past Winton to Pen Cuckoo Manor and turning into Cloudyfold Rise at the head of the valley. It is not an obviously picturesque valley, but it has a charm that transcends mere prettiness. The lower slopes of Cloudyfold make an agreeable pattern, the groups of trees are beautifully disposed about the flanks of the hills, and the scattered houses, being simple, seem to have grown out of the country, as indeed they have, since they are built of Dorset stone. It is not a tame landscape, either. The four winds meet on Cloudyfold, and in winter the small lake in Pen Cuckoo grounds holds its mask of ice for days together.

Alleyn noticed that several lanes came down into the Vale Road. He could see that at least one of them led crookedly up to the Manor, and one seemed to be a sort of bridle path from the Manor down to the church. He drove on through the double gates, up the climbing avenue and out on the wide sweep before Pen Cuckoo house.

A flood of thin sunshine had escaped the heavy clouds, and Pen Cuckoo looked its wintry best, an ancient and gracious house, not so very big, not at all forbidding, but tranquil. “A happy house,” thought Alleyn, “with a certain dignity.”

He gave his card to Taylor.

“I should like to see Mr. Jernigham, if I may.”

“If you will come this way, sir.”

As he followed Taylor through the west wing, he thought: “With any luck, it’ll be the study.”

It was, and the study was empty.

As soon as the door had shut behind Taylor, Alleyn looked for the box described by Sergeant Roper. He found it on a table underneath one of the windows. He lifted the lid and saw that the box was empty. He looked closely at the notice “LOADED,” which was printed in block capitals. Alleyn gently let fall the lid and walked over to the french window. It was not locked. It looked across the end of the gravelled sweep and over the tops of the park trees right down Pea Cuckoo Vale to Chipping and beyond.

Alleyn was still tracing the course of the Vale Road as it wound through the valley when the squire walked in.

Jocelyn looked fresh and composed. Perhaps his eyes were a little more prominent than usual and his face a little less red, but he had the look of a man who has come to a decision and there was a certain dignity and resolution in his manner.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said as he shook hands. “Sit down, won’t you? This is a terrible affair.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “It’s both terrible and bewildering.”

“Good God, I should think it was bewildering! It’s the most damned complicated, incomprehensible business I ever want to come up against. I suppose Blandish has told you that in Dillington’s absence I’ve got his job?”

“As Chief Constable? Yes, sir, he told me. That’s partly my reason for calling on you.”

The squire stared solemnly into the fire and said, “Quite.”

“Blandish says you were present when the thing happened.”

“Good God, yes. I don’t know why it happened, though, or exactly how. As soon as we decided to call you in, Blandish was all for leaving things severely alone. Be damn’ glad if you’d explain.”

Alleyn explained. Jocelyn listened with his eyes very wide open and his mouth not quite closed.

“Beastly, underhand, ingenious sort of thing,” he said. “Sounds more like a woman’s work to me. I don’t mean to say I think women are particularly underhand, you know; but when they do turn nasty, in my opinion they are inclined to turn crooked-nasty.”

He laughed unexpectedly and uncomfortably.

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn.

“Sort of inverse ratio or something, what?” added the squire dimly.

“That’s it, sir. Now, the first thing we’ve got to tackle is the ownership of the Colt. I don’t know — ”

“Wait a bit,” said Jocelyn. He stood up, drove his hands into his breeches pockets and walked over to the french windows.

“It’s mine,” he said.

Alleyn did not answer. The squire turned and looked at him. Seeing nothing but polite attention in Alleyn’s face, he made a slight inarticulate noise, strode to the table under the window and opened the box.

“See for yourself,” he said. “It’s been in that box for the last twenty years. It was there last week. Now it’s gone.”

Alleyn joined him.

“Hellish unpleasant,” said Jocelyn, “isn’t it? I only found out this morning. My son was thinking about the business, it seems, and suddenly remembered that the Colt is always lying there, loaded. He came downstairs and looked, and then he came to my room and told me. I’m wondering if I ought not to resign my position as C.C.”

“I shouldn’t do that, sir,” said Alleyn. “With any luck, we ought to be able to clear up the disappearance of the automatic.”

“I feel pretty shaken up about it, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Of course you do. As a matter of fact, I’ve brought the Colt up here to show you. May I just fetch it? I can slip out to the car this way.”

He went straight through the french windows and returned with his case, from which he took the automatic wrapped in a silk handkerchief.

“There’s really no need for all these precautions,” said Alleyn as he unwrapped it. “We’ve been all over it for prints and found none. My fingerprint man travels with half a laboratory in his kit. This thing’s been dusted, peered at and photographed. It was evidently very thoroughly cleaned after it was put in position.”

He laid the automatic in the box. It exactly fitted the indentation in the green baize lining.

“Seems a true bill,” said Alleyn.

“How many rounds gone?” asked Jocelyn.

“Three,” answered Alleyn.

“I fired the first two in 1917,” said Jocelyn; “but I swear before God I’d nothing to do with the third.”

“I hope you’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing who had,” said Alleyn. “Did you write this notice, ‘Loaded,’ sir?”

“Yes,” said Jocelyn. “What of it?”

Alleyn paused for a fraction of a second before he said, “Only routine, sir. I was going to ask if it always lay on top of the Colt.”

“Certainly.”

“Do you mind, sir, if I take this box away with me? There may be prints; but I’m afraid your housemaids are too well trained.”

“I hope to God you find something. Do take it. I tell you, I’m nearly worried to death by the whole thing. It’s a damned outrage that this blasted murderer — ”

The door opened and Henry came into the room.

“This is my son,” said Jocelyn.

ii

From an upstairs window Henry had watched the arrival of Alleyn’s car. Ever since his visit to the study at dawn and his subsequent interview with the abruptly awakened Jocelyn, Henry had been unable to think coherently, to stay still, or to do anything definite. It struck him that he was in very much the same condition as he had been last night while waiting in the wings for the curtain to go up. He had telephoned to Dinah and arranged to see her at the rectory. He had prowled miserably about the house. At intervals he had tried to reassure his father, who had taken the news well, but was obviously very shaken. He had wondered what they would do with Eleanor when she chose to appear. She had gone straight to her room on her return from church, and was reported to be suffering from a headache.

When Jocelyn went downstairs to meet Alleyn, Henry’s condition became several degrees more uncomfortable. He imagined his father making a bad job of the automatic story, getting himself further and further involved, and finally losing his temper. The Yard man would probably be maddeningly professional and heavy handed. Henry pictured him seated on the edge of one of the study chairs, staring at his father with sharp, inhuman eyes set in a massive policeman’s face. “He will carry his bowler in with him and his boots will be intolerable,” thought Henry. “A mammoth of officialdom!”

At last his own idleness became insupportable, and he ran downstairs and made for the study.

He could hear his father’s voice raised, as it seemed, in protest. He opened the door and walked in.

“This is my son,” said Jocelyn.

Henry’s first thought was that this was some stranger, or perhaps a friend of Jocelyn’s arrived with hideous inconvenience to visit them. He saw an extremely tall man, thin, and wearing good clothes, with an air of vague distinction.

“This is Mr. Alleyn,” said Jocelyn, “from Scotland Yard.”

“Oh,” said Henry.

He shook hands, felt suddenly rather young, and sat down. His next impression was that he had seen Mr. Alleyn before. He found himself looking at Alleyn in terms of a pencil drawing. A drawing that might have been done by Dürer with a sharp, hard pencil and then washed delicately with blue-blacks and ochres. “A grandee turned monk,” thought Henry, “but retaining some amusing memories.” And he sought to find a reason for this impression which seemed more like a recollection. The accents of the brows, the winged corners to, the mouth and eyes, the sharp insistence of the skull — he had seen them all before.

“Henry!” said his father sharply.

Henry realised that Alleyn had been speaking.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t — I’m very sorry.”

“I was only asking,” said Alleyn, “if you could help us with this business of the Colt. Your father says it was in its box last week. Can you get any nearer to it than that?”

“It was there on Friday afternoon at five,” said Henry.

“How d’you know?” demanded the squire.

“You’ll scarcely credit it,” said Henry slowly, “but I’ve only just remembered. It was before you came down. I was here with Cousin Eleanor waiting for the others to come in for Dinah’s run-through for words. They all arrived together, or within two or three minutes of each other. Somebody, Dr. Templett, I think, said something about the burglaries in Somerset last week. Posh Jimmy and his Boys, and all that. We wondered if they’d come this way. Miss Campanula talked about burglar alarms and what she’d do if she heard stealthy footsteps in the small hours. I told them about your war relic, Father, and we all looked at it. Mrs. Ross said she didn’t think it was safe to have a loaded firearm lying about. I showed her that the safety catch was on. Then we talked about something else. You came in and we started the rehearsal.”

“That’s a help,” said Alleyn. “It narrows the time down to twenty-seven hours. That was Friday evening. Now, did either of you go to the hall on Friday afternoon?”

“I was hunting,” said Jocelyn. “I didn’t get back till five, in time for this run-through.”

Alleyn looked at Henry.

“I went for a walk,” said Henry. “I left at about half-past two. I remember now. It was half-past two.”

“Did you go far?”

Henry looked straight before him.

“No. About half-way down to the church.”

“How long were you away?”

“About two hours.”

“You stopped somewhere, then?”

“Yes.”

“Did you speak to anybody?”

“I met Dinah Copeland.” Henry looked at his father. “Not by appointment. We talked. For some time. Then my cousin, Eleanor Prentice, came up. She had been to church. If it’s of any interest, I remember hearing the church clock strike three when she came up. After that Dinah went back to the rectory and I struck up a path to Cloudyfold. I came home by the hill path.”

“At what time did you get home?”

“Tea-time. About half-past four.”

“Thank you. Now for Friday at five, when the company met here and you showed them the automatic. Did they all leave together?”

“Yes,” said Henry.

“At what time?”

“Soon after six.”

“Nobody was alone in here at any time before they left?”

“No. We rehearsed in here. They all went out by the french window. It saves trailing through the house.”

“Yes. Is it always unlocked?”

“During the day it is.”

“I lock it before we go to bed,” said Jocelyn, “and fasten the shutters. Lock up the whole place.”

“You did this on Friday night, sir?”

“Yes. I was in here reading, all Friday evening.”

“Alone?”

“I was here part of the time,” Henry said. “Something had gone wrong with one of Dinah’s light plugs in the hall and I’d brought it up here to mend. I started in here, and then went to my own room where I had a screwdriver. I tried to ring Dinah up, but our telephone was out of order. A branch had fallen across it in Top Lane.”

“I see. Now, how about yesterday? Any visitors?”

“Templett came up in the morning to borrow an old four-in-hand tie of mine,” said Jocelyn. “He seemed to think he’d like to wear it in in the play. He offered to look at my cousin’s finger, but she wouldn’t come down.”

“She was afraid he’d tell her she couldn’t play her filthy ‘Venetian Suite,’ ” said Henry. “Do you admire the works of Ethelbert Nevin, Mr. Alleyn?”

“No,” said Alleyn.

“They’re gall and wormwood to me,” said Henry gloomily. “And I suppose we’ll have them here for the rest of our lives. Not that I like the bloody Prelude much better. Do you know what that Prelude is supposed to illustrate?”

“Yes, I think I do. Isn’t it — ”

“Burial,” said Henry. “It’s supposed to be a man buried alive. Bump, bump, bump on the coffin lid. Well, I suppose it’s not so frightfully inappropriate.”

“Not so frightfully,” agreed Alleyn rather grimly. “Now, about yesterday’s visitors.”

But Henry and his father were rather vague about yesterday’s visitors. The squire had driven into Great Chipping in the morning.

“And Miss Prentice?” asked Alleyn.

“Same thing. She went with us. She was in the hall all the morning. They were all there.”

“All?”

“Well, not Templett,” said Henry. “He called in here as we’ve described, at about ten o’clock, and my father gave him the tie. And a pretty ghastly affair it is, I may add.”

“They were damn’ smart at one time,” said the squire hotly. “I remember I wore that tie—”

“Well, anyway,” said Henry, “he got the tie. I didn’t see him. I was hunting up my own clothes. We all went out soon after he’d gone. You saw him off, didn’t you, Father?”

“Yes,” said the squire. “Funny sort of fellow, Templett. First I knew about him was that Taylor told me he was in here and wanted the four-in-hand. I told Taylor to hunt it up and came down and found Templett. We talked for quite a long time and I’m blessed if, when I walked out with him to the car, poor little Mrs. Ross wasn’t sitting there. Damn’ funny thing to do,” said Jocelyn, brushing up his moustache. “ ’Pon my word, I think the fellow wanted to keep her to himself.”

Alleyn looked thoughtfully at him.

“How was Dr. Templett dressed?” he asked.

“What? I don’t know. Yes, I think I do. Donegal tweed.”

“An overcoat?”

“No.”

“Bulging pockets?” asked Henry, with a grin at Alleyn.

“I don’t think so. Why? Good Lord, you don’t suppose he took my Colt, do you?”

“We’ve got to explore the possibilities, sir,” said Alleyn.

“My God,” said Jocelyn, “I suppose they’re all under suspicion! What?”

“Including us,” said Henry. “You know,” he added, “theoretically one wouldn’t put it past Templett. Eleanor’s been poisonous about his alleged — notice how I protect myself, Mr. Alleyn — his alleged affair with Selia Ross.”

“Good God!” shouted Jocelyn angrily, “haven’t you got more sense than to talk like that, Henry? This is a damn’ serious business, let me tell you, and you go blackening Mr. — Mr. Alleyn’s mind against a man who — ”

“I spoke theoretically, remember,” said Henry. “I don’t really suppose Templett is a murderer, and as for Mr. Alleyn’s mind — ”

“It doesn’t blacken very readily,” said Alleyn.

“And after all,” Henry continued, “you might make out just as bad a case against me. If I thought I could murder Cousin Eleanor in safety I dare say I should undertake it. And I should think Mr. Copeland would feel sorely tempted after the way she’s — ”

“Henry!”

“But, my dear Father, Mr. Alleyn is going to hear all the local gossip if he hasn’t done so already. Of course, Mr. Alleyn will suspect each of us in turn. Even dear Cousin Eleanor herself is not above suspicion. She may have infected her finger in the approved manner with a not too deadly toxin. Or made it up to look septic. Why not? There were the grease paints. True, she overdid it a bit, but that may have been pure artistry.”

“Damn’ dangerous twaddle,” shouted Jocelyn. “It was hurting her like hell. I’ve known Eleanor since we were children, and I’ve never seen her cry before. She’s a Jernigham.”

“A good deal of it was straight-out annoyance at not being able to perform the ‘Venetian Suite,’ if you ask me. Tears of anger, they were, and the only sort you’ll ever wring from Eleanor’s eyes. Did she cry when they yawked out her gall-bladder? No. She’s a Jernigham.”

“Be quiet, sir,” stormed Jocelyn.

“As far as I can see, the only one of us who could not have set the trap is poor old Idris Campanula. Oh, God!”

Alleyn, watching Henry, saw him turn very white before he moved away to the window.

“All right,” Henry said to the landscape. “One’s got to do something about it. Can’t go on all day thinking of an old maid with her brains blown out. Might as well be funny in our hard, decadent modern way.”

“I remember getting the same reaction in the war,” said Alleyn vaguely. “As they say in vaudeville, ‘I had to laugh.’ It’s not an uncommon rebound from shock.”

“I don’t suppose I was being anything but excessively commonplace,” said Henry tartly. iv

“Then you don’t know if anybody came while you were out yesterday morning?” asked Alleyn, after some considerable time spent in collecting the attention of the two Jernighams.

“I’ll ask the servants,” said Jocelyn importantly, and rang for Taylor.

As Alleyn expected, the evidence of the servants was completely inconclusive. Nobody had actually rung the door bells, but on the other hand anybody might have walked into the study and done anything. They corroborated Jocelyn and Henry’s statements about their own movements and Taylor remembered seeing Miss Prentice come in at four on Friday afternoon. When the last maid had gone Alleyn asked if they had all been at Pen Cuckoo for some time.

“Lord, yes,” said the squire. “Out of the question they should have anything to do with this affair. No motive, no opportunity.”

“And not nearly enough sense,” added Henry.

“In addition to which,” said Alleyn, “they have provided each other with alibis for the whole day until they all went down in a solid body to the church hall at seven-thirty.”

“I understand the entertainment provided,” said Henry, “caused cook to vomit three times on the way home, and this morning, Father, I am told, the boot-boy heaved everything he had into the tops of your hunting boots.”

“Well, that’s a nice thing!” began Jocelyn crossly.

Alleyn said, “You told me it is out of the question that the automatic could have been substituted for the water-pistol during yesterday morning.”

“Unless it was done under the noses of a bevy of Friendly Young People and most of the company,” said Henry.

“How about the afternoon?”

“It was locked up then and the key, instead of being at the rectory as usual, was hidden, fancifully enough, behind the outside lavatory,” said Henry. “Dinah invented the place of concealment, and announced it at rehearsal. Cousin Eleanor was too put-out to object. Nobody but the members of the cast knew about it. As far as I know, only Templett and Mrs. Ross called in during the afternoon.”

“What did you do?” asked Alleyn.

“I went for a walk on Cloudyfold. I met nobody,” said Henry, “and I can’t prove I was there.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn mildly. “What about you, sir?”

“I went round the stables with Rumbold, my agent,” said Jocelyn, “and then I came in and went to sleep in the library. I was waked by my cousin at five. We had a sort of high tea at half-past six and went down to the hall at a quarter to seven.”

“All three of you?”

“Yes.”

“And now, if you please,” said Alleyn, “I should like to see Miss Prentice.”