Overture to Death

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Final Vignettes

i

The express from London roared into Great Chipping station. Alleyn, who had been reading the future in the murky window pane, rose hurriedly and put on his overcoat.

Fox was on the platform.

“Well, Brer Fox?” said Alleyn when they reached the Biggins’s Ford.

“Well, sir, the Yard car’s arrived. They’re to drive up quietly after we’ve all assembled. Alison can come into the supper-room with his two men and I’ll wait inside the front door.”

“That’ll be all right. I’d better give you all a cue to stand by, as Miss Copeland would say. Let’s see. I’ll ask Miss Prentice if she’s feeling the draught. We’ll sit on the stage round that table so there’ll probably be a hell of a draught. How did you get on at Pen Cuckoo?”

“She was there.”

“Not?”

“Ross or Rosen. You had a lucky strike there, Mr. Alleyn. Fancy her being Claude Smith’s girl. We were on the Quantock case at that time, weren’t we?”

“We weren’t at the Yard, anyway. I’ve never seen her before this.”

“More’ve I. Well, she was there. Something up — between him and her — I should say.”

“Between who and her, Mr. Fox?” asked Nigel. “You’re very dark and cryptic this evening.”

“Between Jernigham senior and Mrs. Ross, Mr. Bathgate. When I arrived he was looking peculiar, and Mr. Henry seemed as if he thought something was up. She was cool enough, but I’d say the other lady was a case for expert opinion.”

“Miss Prentice?” murmured Alleyn.

“That’s right, sir. Young Jernigham went and fetched her. She owned up to opening the window as sweet as you please, and then began to talk a lot of nonsense about letting in the unpardonable sin. I took it all down, but you’d be surprised how silly it was.”

“The unpardonable sin? Which one’s that, I wonder?”

“Nobody owned to the onion,” said Fox gloomily.

“I think onions, in any form, the unpardonable sin,” said Nigel.

“I reckon you’re right about the onion, Mr. Alleyn.”

“I think so, Fox. After all, on finding onions in teapots, why not exclaim on the circumstance? Why not say, ‘Georgie Biggins for a certainty,’ and raise hell?”

“That’s right, sir. Well, from the way they shaped up to the question, you’d say none of them had ever smelt one. Mr. Jernigham’s talking about getting a doctor in. Do you know what? I think he’s sweet on her. On Rosen, I mean.”

Fox changed into second gear for Chipping Rise and said, “The telephone’s right. I told you that when I rang up, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“And I’ve seen the four girls who helped Gladys Wright. Three of them are ready to swear on oath that nobody came down into the hall from the stage, and the fourth is certain nobody did, but wouldn’t swear, as she went into the porch for a minute. I’ve re-checked the movements of all the people behind the scenes. Mr. Copeland sat facing the footlights from the time he got there until he went in to Mr. Jernigham’s room, when they tried to telephone to Mrs. Ross. He went back to the stage and didn’t leave it again until they all crowded round Miss Prentice.”

“I think it’s good enough, Fox.”

“I think so, too. This Chief Constable business is awkward, isn’t it, Mr. Alleyn?”

“It is, indeed. I know of no precedent. Oh, well, we’ll see what the preliminary interview does. You arranged that?”

“Yes, sir, that’s all right. Did you dine on the train?”

“Yes, Fox. The usual dead fish and so on. Mr. Bathgate wants to know who did the murder.”

“I do know,” said Nigel in the back seat; “but I won’t let on.”

“D’you want to stop at the pub, Mr. Alleyn?”

“No. Let’s get it over, Brer Fox, let’s get it over.”

ii

At Henry’s suggestion, they had invited Dinah and the rector to dinner.

“You may as well take Dinah and me for granted, father. We’re not going to give each other up, you know.”

“I still think — however!”

And Henry, watching his father, knew that the afternoon visit of Miss Campanula’s lawyers to the rectory was Vale property. Jocelyn boggled and uttered inarticulate noises; but already, Henry thought, his father was putting a new roof on Winton. It would be better not to speak, thought Henry, of his telephone conversation with Dinah after Fox had gone. For Dinah had told Henry that her father felt he could not accept the fortune left him by Idris Campanula.

Henry said, “I don’t suppose you suspect either the rector or Dinah, do you, even though they do get the money? They don’t suspect us. Cousin Eleanor, who suspects God knows who, is in her room and won’t appear until dinner.”

“She ought not to be alone.”

“One of the maids is with her. She’s quietened down again and is quite normally long-suffering and martyred.”

Jocelyn looked nervously at Henry.

“What do you think’s the matter with her?”

“Gone ravers,” said Henry cheerfully.

The Copelands accepted the invitation to dinner. Sherry was served in the library, but Henry managed to get Dinah into the study, where he had made up a large fire and had secretly placed an enormous bowl of yellow chrysanthemums.

“Darling Dinah,” said Henry, “there are at least fifty things of the most terrific importance to say to you, and when I look at you I can’t think of one of them. May I kiss you? We’re almost publicly betrothed, aren’t we?”

“Are we? You’ve never really asked for my hand.”

“Miss Copeland — may I call you Dinah? — be mine. Be mine.”

“I may not deny, Mr. Jernigham, that my sensibilities; nay, since I will not dissemble, my affections are touched by this declaration. I cannot hear you unmoved.”

Henry kissed her and muttered in her ear that he loved her very much.

“All the same,” said Dinah, “I do wonder why Mr. Alleyn wants us to go down to the hall to-night. I don’t want to go. The place gives me the absolute horrors.”

“Me, too. Dinah, I made such a fool of myself last night.”

He told her how he had heard the three chords of the “Prelude” as he came through the storm.

“I would have died of it,” said Dinah. “Henry, why do they want us to-night? Are they — are they going to arrest someone?”

“Who?” asked Henry.

They stared solemnly at each other.

“Who indeed,” said Dinah.

iii

“I tell you, Copeland, I’m pretty hard hit,” said the squire, giving himself a whisky-and-soda. “It’s so beastly uncomfortable. Have some more sherry? Nonsense, it’ll do you good. You’re not looking particularly happy yourself.”

“It’s the most dreadful thing that has ever happened to any of us,” said the rector. “How’s Miss Prentice?”

“That’s partly what I want to talk about. I ought to warn you — ”

The rector listened with a steadily blanching face to Jocelyn’s account of Miss Prentice.

“Poor soul,” he said, “poor soul.”

“Yes, I know, but it’s damned inconvenient. I’m sorry, rector, but it — well, it’s — it’s — Oh, God!”

“Would you like to tell me?” asked the rector, and if he spoke at all wearily Jocelyn did not notice it

“No,” said Jocelyn, “no. There’s nothing to tell. I’m simply rather worried. What d’you suppose is the meaning of this meeting to-night?”

The rector looked curiously at him.

“I thought you probably knew. Your position, I mean — ”

“As the weapon happens to be my property, I felt it better to keep right out of the picture. Technically, I’m a suspect.”

“Yes. Dear me, yes.” The rector sipped his sherry. “So are we all, of course.”

“I wonder,” said the squire, “what Alleyn is up to.”

“You don’t think he’s going to — to arrest anybody?”

They stared at each other.

“Dinner is served, sir,” said Taylor.

iv

“Good-night, dear,” said Dr. Templett to his wife. “I expect you’ll be asleep when I get home. I’m glad it’s been a good day.”

“It’s been a splendid day,” said the steadfastly gallant voice. “Good-night, my dear.”

Templett shut the door softly. The telephone pealed in his dressing-room at the end of the landing. The hospital was to ring before eight. He went to his dressing-room and lifted the receiver.

“Hullo?”

“Is that you, Billy?”

He sat frozen, the receiver still at his ear.

“Billy? Hullo? Hullo?”

“Well?” said Dr. Templett.

“Then you are alive,” said the voice.

“I haven’t been arrested, after all.”

“Nor, strangely enough, have I, in spite of the fact that I’ve been to Alleyn and taken the whole responsibility of the letter — ”

“Selia! Not on the telephone!”

“I don’t much care what happens to me now. You’ve let me down. Nothing else matters.”

“What do you mean? No, don’t tell me! It’s not true.”

“Very well. Good-bye, Billy.”

“Wait! Have you been told to parade at the hall this evening?”

“Yes. Have you?”

“Yes.” Dr. Templett brushed his hand across his eyes. He muttered hurriedly: “I’ll call for you.”

“What?”

“If you like I’ll drive you there.”

“I’ve got my own car. You needn’t bother.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine.”

“And drop me a few minutes later, I suppose?”

“That’s not quite fair. What do you suppose I thought when—?”

“You obviously don’t trust me. That’s all.”

“My God—!” began Dr. Templett. The voice cut in coolly:

“All right. At nine. Why do you suppose he wants us in the hall? Is he going to arrest someone?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

v

The church clock struck nine as the police car drew up outside the hall. Alleyn and Fox got out, followed by Detective-Sergeant Alison and two plain-clothes men. At the same moment, Nigel drove up in his own car with Sergeant Roper. They all went in through the back door. Alleyn switched on the stage lights and the supper-room light.

“You see the lie of the land, don’t you,” he said. “Two flights of steps from the supper-room to the stage. We’ll have the curtain down, I think, Fox. You can stay on the stage. So can you, Bathgate, in the wings, and with not a word out of you. You know when to go down and what to do?”

“Yes,” said Nigel nervously.

“Good. Alison, you’d better move to the front door, and you others can go into the dressing-rooms. They’ll come straight through the supper-room and won’t see you. Roper, you’re to go outside and direct them to the back door. Then come in. But quietly, if you don’t want me to tear your buttons off and half-kill you. The rest of you can stay in the dressing-rooms until the company’s complete. When it is complete, I’ll slam both doors at the top of the steps. You can then come into the supper-room and sit on the steps. The piano’s in position, isn’t it, Fox? And the screens? Yes. All right, down with the curtain.”

The curtain came down in three noisy rushes, releasing a cloud of dust.

With the front of the hall shut out, the stage presented a more authentic appearance. Dinah’s box set, patched and contrived though it was, resembled any touring company’s stock scenery, while Mrs. Ross’s chairs and ornaments raised the interior to still greater distinction. The improvised lights shone bravely enough on chintz and china. The stage had taken on a sort of eerie half-life and an air of expectancy. On the round table Alleyn laid the anonymous letter, the “Prelude in C Minor,” the “Venetian Suite,” the pieces of rubber in their box, the onion, the soap-box and the teapot. He then covered this curious collection with a cloth.

Fox and Alison brought extra chairs from the dressing-rooms and put one of the paraffin lamps on the stage.

“Eight chairs,” counted Alleyn. “That’s right. Are we ready? I think so.”

“Nothing else, sir?”

“Nothing. Remember your cue. Leave on the supper-room lights. Here he comes, I think. Away you go.”

Fox walked over to the prompt corner. Nigel went through the opposite door and sat out of sight in the shadow of the proscenium. Alison went down to the auditorium, the two plain-clothes men disappeared into the dressing-rooms, and Roper, breathing stertorously, made for the back door.

“Shock tactics,” muttered Alleyn. “Damn, I hate ’em. So infernally unfair, and they look like pure exhibitionism on the part of the police. Oh, well, can’t be helped.”

“I don’t hear a car,” whispered Nigel.

“It’s coming.”

They all listened. The wind howled and the rain drummed on the shutters.

“I’ll never think of this place,” said Nigel, “without hearing that noise.”

“It’s worse than ever,” said Fox.

“Here he is,” said Alleyn.

And now they all heard the car draw up in the lane. A door slammed. Boots crunched up the gravel path. Roper’s voice could be heard. The back door opened. Roper, suddenly transformed into a sort of major-domo, said loudly:

“Mr. Jernigham senior, sir.”

And the squire walked in.