Tied Up in Tinsel

Six — Storm Rising

“It’s a very impressive residence, this,” Superintendent Wrayburn observed.

He and Alleyn paused in the hall, which was otherwise deserted. Great swags of evergreen still hung from the gallery. Fires blazed on the enormous hearths.

“What I mean,” Superintendent Wrayburn said, “it’s impressive,” and after a moment: “Take a look at this.”

A framed plan of Halberds hung near the entrance.

“Useful,” said Wrayburn. They studied it and then stood with their backs to the front doors getting, as Wrayburn put it, the hang of the place. Beyond that, the open courtyard, flanked east and west by the projecting wings. On their left was the east wing with a corridor opening off the hall serving library, breakfast-room, boudoir, study and, at the rear angle of the house, the chapel. On their right were the drawing-room, dining-room serveries and, at the northwest rear corner, the kitchen. Doors under the gallery, one of them the traditional green baize swinger, led from the back of the hall, between the twin flights of stairs; into a passage which gave on the servants’ quarters and various offices, including the flower-room.

Alleyn looked up at the gallery. It was dimly lit, but out of the shadows there glimmered a pale greenish shape of extreme elegance. One’s meant to look at that, he thought. It’s a treasure.

“So what about this cloakroom, then?” Wrayburn suggested. “Before I take any further action?”

“Why not? Here you are.”

It was in the angle between the entrance porch and the drawing-room and, as Hilary said, had a door to the hall and another to the porch. “The plan,” Alleyn pointed out, “shows a corresponding room on the east side. It’s a symmetrical house, isn’t it?”

“So when he came out,” Wrayburn mused, “he should have walked straight ahead to the right-hand flight of stairs and up them to the gallery?”

“And along the gallery to the east corridor in the visitors’ wing. Where he disappeared into thin air?”

“Alternatively — Here! Let’s look.”

They went into the cloakroom, shutting the door behind them and standing close together, just inside the threshold.

Alleyn was transported backstage. Here was that smell of face cream and spirit-gum. Here was the shelf with a towel laid over it and the looking-glass. Neatly spread out, fan-wise, on one side of this bench, was the Druid’s golden beard and moustache and, hooked over a table lamp in lieu of a wig-block, the golden wig itself, topped by a tall crown of mistletoe.

A pair of knitted woollen gloves lay nearby.

A collection of mackintoshes, gum boots, and shooting-sticks had been shoved aside to make room for the Druid’s golden robe. There was the door opening on the porch and beside it a small lavatorial compartment. The room was icy cold.

Under the makeup bench, neatly aligned, stood a pair of fur-lined boots. Their traces from the outside door to where they had been removed were still quite damp and so were they.

“We’d better keep clear of them,” Alleyn said, “hadn’t we?” From where he stood he reached over to the bench, moved the table lamp and, without touching the wig, turned its back towards them. It had been powdered, like the beard, with gold dust. But at the place where the long hair would have overhung the nape of the neck there was a darker patch.

“Wet?” Wrayburn said, pointing to it. “Snow, would that have been? He was out in the snow, wasn’t he? But the rest of the thing’s only—” he touched the mistletoe crown “—damp.”

Alleyn flicked a long finger at the cardboard carton which Wrayburn still carried. “Did you get a good look at it?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Wrayburn said, answering a question that Alleyn had not asked. “You’re dead right. This is getting altogether different. It looks to me,” he said, “as if we’d got a bit of a case on our hands.”

“I believe you have.”

“Well,” Wrayburn said, making small movements of his shoulders and lifting his chin. “There’ll have to be an adjustment, I mean to say in the approach, won’t there?” He laid the carton on the bench as if it was made of porcelain. “There’ll need to be an analysis, of course, and a comparison. I’d better — I’d better report it to our C.I.D. But — just let’s —”

He shot a glance at Alleyn, fished in his pockets, and produced a small steel rule. He introduced the end under the hair and raised it.

“Take a look,” he said. “It’s wet, of course, but d’you reckon there’s a stain?”

“Might be.”

“I’m going to damn’ well —” Without completing his sentence, Wrayburn lifted a strand and with a fingernail and thumb separated a single hair and gave it a tweak. The wig tipped sideways and the crown of mistletoe fell off. Wrayburn swore.

“They make these things pretty solidly, don’t they?” Alleyn said. He righted the wig and held it steady. Wrayburn wound the single hair round the rule and this time jerked it free. Alleyn produced an envelope and the hair was dropped into it. Wrayburn stowed it in his tunic pocket.

“Let’s have a look at the robe,” Alleyn said. He lifted it off on its coat hanger and turned it round. A slide fastener ran right down the back, separating the high-standing collar, which showed a wet patch and was frayed.

“Cripes,” said Wrayburn, and then: “We’ll have to get this room locked up.”

“Yes.”

“Look. What seems to come out of this? I mean it’s pretty obvious the hair on the poker matches this, and there’s not much doubt, is there, that the deposit on the poker is blood. And what about the wet patch on the wig? And the collar? That’s not blood. So what? They’ve been cleaned. What with? Water? Wiped clear or washed. Which? Where? When?”

“You’re going like a train, Jack.”

“Must have been here, after the young lady left him. Unless — well, unless she did it and left him cold, in which case who got rid of him? She didn’t. Well — did she?”

“Have you met the young lady?”

“No.”

“She’s not the body-carrying type. Except her own, which she carries like Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.”

“Is that right?” Wrayburn mused. “Is that a fact? Now, about this wig and beard and all that carry-on. To begin with, this gear’s upstairs in a dressing-room. Moult supposedly puts it on, all except the whiskers, and comes down here, where the young lady meets him and fixes the whiskers. She goes to the drawing-room and he goes out by that door into the porch and then into the courtyard, where this Vincent liaises with him, then into the drawing-room, where he does a Daddy Christmas, or what passes for it, round the tree. Then he returns the same way as he came and Vincent sees him come in here by the same door and the young lady takes off his whiskers and leaves him here. And that’s the last anybody sees of him. Now. What say, somebody who knows he’s here comes in from outside with the poker from the upstairs dressing-room and lets him have it. Say he’s sitting there, nice and handy, still wearing his wig. Right. Then this character hauls him outside and dumps him, God knows where, but — Here!” Wrayburn ejaculated. “Wait a bit! What’s out there? There’s a sledge out there. And there’s this chap Vincent out there. Isn’t there?”

“There is, indeed.”

“Well!” Wrayburn said. “Tt’s a start, isn’t it? It may not do in the finish. And I’ve read your book. I know what you think about drawing quick conclusions.”

“It’s a start.”

“Following it up, then. This character, before he goes, sees the condition of the wig and cleans the stains off at the handbasin there and hitches it over the lamp like we found it with that blasted tiara on it. And he goes out and chucks the poker into the fir tree and disposes — God knows where — of the — if it’s homicide — of the body. How about it? Come on. Prove me a fool. Come on.”

“My dear chap, I think it’s a well-reasoned proposition.”

“You do?”

“There are difficulties, though.”

“There are?”

“The floor, for instance. The carpet. Clear traces of the returning wet boots but nothing else. No other boots. And nothing to suggest a body having been dragged to the door. O.K., suppose it was carried out? You’d still expect some interference with the original prints and a set of new ones pointing both ways, wouldn’t you?”

Wrayburn stared moodily at the string-coloured carpet with its clear damp incoming impressions. He picked up a boot and fitted it to the nearest print. “Tallies,” he said. “That’s something. And the boot’s still wet. No drying in here and it was only last night, after all. Well — what next? What’s left? Alternative — he did go upstairs and get clobbered.”

“Wearing his wig?”

“All right. Fair enough. Wearing his wig. God knows why, but wearing his wig. And goes up to the dressing-room. And gets clobbered with the dressing-room poker. And — here! Hold on! Hold on! And the clobberer throws the poker out of the window and it gets stuck in the tree?”

“It seems possible.”

“It does?”

“And the body? If he’s dead?” Alleyn asked.

“Through the window too? Hang on. Don’t rush me.”

“Not for the world. Is the body wearing the wig when it takes the high jump?”

Wrayburn swallowed. “The bloody wig,” he said. “Leave the wig for the time being. Now. I know this bunch of domestic villains are supposed to have searched the area. I know that. But what say someone — all right, one of that lot for the sake of argument — had already removed the body? In the night? Will you buy that?”

“I’ll take it on approval. Removed the body and to confuse the issue returned the unmentionable wig to the cloakroom?”

“I quite like it,” said Wrayburn with a slight attempt at modesty. “Well, anyway, it does sort of fit. It snowed up here, last night. We won’t get anything from the ground, worse luck.”

“Until it thaws.”

“That’s right. That’s dead right.” Wrayburn cleared his throat. “It’s going to be a big one,” he said and after a considerable pause: “Like I said, it’s for our C.I.D. I’ll have to ring the Detective Chief Super about this one and I reckon I know what he’ll say. He’ll say we set up a search. Look, I’ll get onto this right away. You wait here. Will you?”

“Well—”

“I’d be obliged.”

“All right.”

So Wrayburn went off to telephone his Detective Chief Superintendent and Alleyn, a prey to forebodings, was left to contemplate the cloakroom.

Wrayburn came back, full of business. “There you are!” he said. “Just as I thought: He’s going to talk to his senior ’tecs and in the meantime I’m to carry on here. As from now. I’m to lay on a search party and ask Major Marchbanks for dogs. You’ll hang on, won’t you?” Alleyn promised and did so. When Wrayburn had gone he reexamined the wig, plucked a hair for himself, touched the still-damp robe, and fell into an abstraction from which Mr. Wrayburn’s return aroused him.

“No joy,” grumbled Wrayburn. “Breaking and entering with violence and Lord knows what else at the D.C.S.’s. He is calling up as many chaps as he can and the Major’s sending us what he can spare. They should be here within the hour. In the meantime—” he broke off, glanced at Alleyn, and made a fresh start. “There’ll have to be confirmation of all this stuff — statements from the party. The lot.”

“Big thing for you.”

“Are you joking? While it lasts, which will be until the C.I.D. comes waltzing in. Then back down the road smartly for me, to the drunks-in-charge. Look!” he burst out. “I don’t reckon our lot can handle it. Not on their own. Like the man said: we’re understaffed and we’re busy. We’re fully extended. I don’t mind betting the D.C.S.’ll talk to the C.C. before the hour’s out.”

“He’ll be able to call on the county for extra men.”

“He’d do better to go straight to the Yard. Now!”

Alleyn was silent.

“You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?”

“I do, but I wish you wouldn’t. The situation’s altogether too freakish. My wife’s a guest here and so am I. I’m the last person to meddle. I’ve told Bill-Tasman as much. Let them call in the Yard if they like, but not me. Leave me out. Get a statement from my wife, of course. You’ll want to do that. And then, unless there’s any good reason against it, I’ll take her away and damn’ glad to do so. And that’s final. I’ll leave you to it. You’ll want to lock up this place and then you can get cracking. Are there keys? Yes. There you are.”

“But —”

“My dear man, no. Not another word. Please.”

Alleyn went out, quickly, into the hall.

He encountered Hilary standing about six feet away with an air strangely compounded of diffidence flavoured with defiance.

“I don’t know what you’ll think of me,” said Hilary. “I daresay you may be very cross. You see, I’ve been talking to our local pundit. The Detective Chief-Superintendent. And to your boss-person at the C.I.D.”

“— It’s just,” Hilary blandly explained, “that I do happen to know him. Soon after I was first settled with the staff here, he paid a visit to the Vale, and Marchbanks brought him over for tea. He was interested in my experiment. But we mustn’t keep him waiting, must we?”

“He’s still on the line?”

“Yes. He’d like to have a word with you. There’s a telephone over there. I know you’re going to forgive me,” Hilary said to Alleyn’s back.

“Then you know a damn’ sight more than’s good for you,” Alleyn thought. He gave himself a second or two to regain his temper and lifted the receiver. Hilary left him with ostentatious tact. Alleyn wondered if he was going to have a sly listen in from wherever he had established the call.

The Assistant Commissioner was plaintive and slightly facetious. “My dear Rory,” he said, “what very odd company you keep: no holiday like a busman’s, I see.”

“I assure you, sir, it’s none of my seeking.”

“So I supposed. Are you alone?”

“Ostensibly.”

“Quite. Well, now your local D.C. Super rang me before Bill-Tasman did. It seems there’s no joy down your way: big multiple stores robbery, with violence, and a near riot following some bloody sit-in. They’re sending a few chaps out but they’re fully extended and can’t really spare them. As far as I can gather this show of yours —”

“It’s not mine.”

“Wait a minute. This show of yours looks as if it might develop into something, doesn’t it?” This was the Assistant Commissioner’s stock phrase for suspected homicide.

“It might, yes.”

“Yes. Your host would like you to take over.”

“But the D.C.S. is in charge, sir. In the meantime Wrayburn, the Div. Super from Downlow’s holding the fort.”

“Has the D.C.S. expressed his intention of going it alone?”

“I understand he’s bellyaching —”

“He is indeed. He wants the Yard.”

“But he’ll have to talk to his Chief Constable, sir, before —”

“His Chief Constable is in the Bermudas.”

“Damnation!”

“This is a very bad line. What was that you said?”

Alleyn repressed an impulse to say “you ’eard.”

“I swore,” he said.

“That won’t get you anywhere, Rory.”

“Look, sir — my wife — Troy — she’s a guest in the house. So am I. It’s a preposterous setup. Isn’t it?”

“I’ve thought of that. Troy had better come back to London, don’t you agree? Give her my best respects and tell her I’m sorry to visit the policeman’s lot upon her.”

“But, sir, if I held the other guests I’d have to — you see what a farcical situation it is.”

“Take statements and let ’em go if you think it’s O.K. You’ve got a promising field without them, haven’t you?”

“I’m not so sure. It’s a rum go. It’s worse than that, it’s lunatic.”

“You’re thinking of the homicidal domestics? An excellent if extreme example of rehabilitation. But of course you may find that somewhere among them there’s a twicer. Rory,” said the A.C., changing his tone, “I’m sorry but we’re uncommonly busy in the department. This job ought to be tackled at once, and it needs a man with your peculiar talents.”

“And that’s an order?”

“Well, yes. I’m afraid it is.”

“Very good, sir.”

“We’ll send you down Mr. Fox for a treat. Would you like to speak to him?”

“I won’t trouble him.” Alleyn said sourly. “But — wait a moment.”

“Yes?”

“I believe Wrayburn has a list of the domestic staff here. I’d like to get a C.R.O. report.”

“Of course. I’d better have a word with this Super. What’s his name? Wrayburn? Turn him on, will you?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Thank you. Sorry. Good luck to you.”

Alleyn went in search of his wife. She was not in their rooms, which gave evidence of her having bathed and changed. He spent a minute or two with his head through the open window, peering into the wreckage below, and then went downstairs. As he crossed the hall he encountered Blore with a tray of drinks and a face of stone.

“The party is in the library, sir,” Blore said. “Mr. Bill-Tasman wished me to inform you. This way, if you please, sir.”

They were all there including Troy, who made a quick face at him.

Hilary was in full spate. “My dears,” he was saying, “what a relief it is.” He advanced upon Alleyn with outstretched hands, took him by the biceps and gently shook him. “My dear fellow!” Hilary gushed. “I was just saying — I can’t tell you how relieved we all are. Now do, do, do, do.” This seemed to be an invitation to drink, sit down, come to the fire, or be introduced to the Colonel and Mr. Smith.

The Colonel had already advanced. He shook hands and said there was almost no need for an introduction because Troy had been “such a dear and so kind,” and added that he was “most awfully worried” about Moult. “You know how it is,” he said. “The feller’s been with one, well, more years than one cares to say. One feels quite lost. And he’s a nice feller. I — we —” he hesitated, glanced at his wife, and then said in a rush, “We’re very attached to him. Very. And, I do assure you, there’s no harm in him. No harm at all in Moult.”

“Upsetting for you,” Alleyn said.

“It’s so awful,” said the Colonel, “to think he may have got that thing, whatever it is. Be wandering about? Somewhere out there? The cold! I tell my nephew we ought to ring Marchbanks up and ask him to lay on his dogs. They must have dogs at that place. What do you say?”

Alleyn said, and meant it, that it was a good idea. He found Mr. Smith bearing down upon him.

“Met before,” said Mr. Smith, giving him a knuckle-breaking handshake. “I never caught on you was you, if you get me. When was it? Ten years ago? I gave evidence for your lot in the Blake forgery case. Remember me?”

Alleyn said he remembered Mr. Smith very well.

Cressida, in a green velvet trousered garment, split down the middle and strategically caught together by an impressive brooch, waggled her fingers at Alleyn and said, “Hi, there.”

Hilary began offering Alleyn a drink and when he said he wouldn’t have one was almost comically nonplussed. “You won’t?” he exclaimed.

“Not on duty, alas,” said Alleyn.

“But — no, really! Surely under these conditions. I mean, it’s not as if you were — well, my dear man, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do,” Alleyn said. “But I think we must as far as possible reduce the rather bizarre circumstances to something resembling routine police procedure.”

Hilary said, “I know, I know but—” and boggled. He appealed dumbly to Troy.

“It would have been lovely to have come as a visitor,” Alleyn said politely, “but I turn out to be no such thing. I turn out to be a policeman on a job and I must try to behave accordingly.”

A complete silence followed. Hilary broke it with a slight giggle.

Mrs. Forrester said, “Very sensible,” and to her nephew: “You can’t have it both ways, Hilary, and you’d best make your mind up to it.”

“Yes. All right,” Hilary said and gulped. “Well,” he asked Alleyn, “what’s the form then? What would you like us to do?”

“For the moment — nothing. The first thing of course, is to set up an organized search for the missing man. Wrayburn is bringing in people to that end as soon as they can be assembled. They’ll be here within the hour. Later on I shall ask each of you for as detailed an account of the events leading up to the disappearance as you can give me. In the meantime I shall have a word with Mr. Wrayburn and then, if you please, I would like to look at Moult’s bedroom and at Colonel Forrester’s dressing-room. After that we’ll have a word with the staff. Perhaps you’d be very kind and tell them, would you?”

“Oh, God,” said Hilary. “Yes. I suppose so. Yes, of course. But you will remember, won’t you, they are in a rather special position?”

“You can say that again,” Mr. Smith remarked.

“I think that’s all for the moment,” Alleyn said. “So if you’ll excuse me —?”

“But you’ll join us for dinner, at least?” Hilary expostulated. “Of course you will!”

“You’re very kind but I think we should press on.”

“But that’s fantastic,” Cressida cried. “You can’t starve. Hilly, he can’t starve.” She appealed to Troy. “Well, can he? You know? Can he?”

Before Troy could answer Hilary. began to talk rather wildly about Alleyn joining them when he could and then about game pie or at the very least, sandwiches. He rang and on the arrival of Blore seemed to collect himself.

Blore stood inside the door with his gaze fixed on a distant point above all their heads.

“Oh, Blore,” Hilary said. “Mr. Alleyn has very kindly agreed to help us. He’s going to take complete charge and we must all assist him as much as we possibly can. I know you and the staff will cooperate. Mr. Alleyn may not be dining. Please arrange a cold supper, will you? Something he can take when he’s free. In the dining-room.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And Blore. Mr. Alleyn would like, later on, to have your account, and the others’, of what you’ve all told me. In case I’ve forgotten anything or got it wrong. You might just let them know, will you?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

When Blore had gone Cressida said: “Hilly, is it my imagination or does that man seem all uptight to you?”

“I hope not, darling. I do hope not. Of course, naturally they’re a bit on edge,” Hilary pleaded. “But nobody’s going to draw any false conclusions, are they? Of course they’re not. Which is why,” he added, reaching for a graceful turn of phrase, “one is so thankful that you,” he turned to Alleyn, “have taken us under your wing. If you see what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Alleyn said pleasantly, “that you’ve quite defined the function of an investigating officer, but it’s nice of you to put it that way.”

Hilary laughed extravagantly and then, with an air of elaborate and anxious solicitation, asked Alleyn if there was anything, anything at all, that anybody could do to help.

“Not at the moment, I think,” he said. “Troy’s given me a pretty comprehensive idea of the situation. But there is one point, as you’re all here —”

“Yes? Yes?” urged Hilary, all concern.

“Nobody recognized Moult as the Druid, it seems. You did all see him, didn’t you? In action?”

A general chorus of assent was followed by elaborations from which it emerged that the houseparty, with the exception of Colonel Forrester, had “mixed” with the other guests and the children in the library and had followed the children in procession to the drawing-room. They had stood together during the tree. When the grown-ups, joined by Cressida, opened their parcels, the houseparty again congealed, thanking each other and exclaiming over the gifts.

Alleyn asked if anyone, apart from his employers, had seen or spoken to Moult during the day. They all looked blank and said they might have but didn’t really remember. If they had spoken it would only be to say “Merry Christmas.”

“Right,” Alleyn said. “Thank you. And now, if I may be excused, I’ll talk to Wrayburn. By the way, may I borrow that lens of yours? It’ll make me feel less of a phony.”

“Of course — I’ll—”

“Don’t move. I’ll get it. It’s on your desk. One other thing — may I take a look at your quarters, Colonel?”

“Certainly. Certainly. If there’s anything you’d like me to show you,” said Colonel Forrester with obvious keenness, “I’ll be glad —”

“No, Fred,” said his wife. “You don’t start that sort of nonsense. Rushing up and down stairs and looking for clues. I said rushing —”

“I know you did, B. It doesn’t apply.”

“If I need help,” Alleyn said, “I’ll come and ask for it. May I?”

“You do that,” said the Colonel warmly and threw a bold look at his wife. “I’ll be delighted. By all means. You do that.”

So Alleyn collected the lens, found Wrayburn and took him upstairs, and Troy, in an extraordinary state of semi-detachment, went in with the houseparty to dinner.

Moult’s bedroom in the top story at Halberds gave evidence, in its appointments, of Hilary’s consideration for his staff. It exhibited, however, the pathological orderliness of an army barracks and had the same smell: a compound of boot-polish, leather, fag-ends, heavy cloth and an indefinable stale masculinity.

Moult’s topcoat, outdoor suit and shoes, hat and gloves were all properly disposed. His empty suitcase was stowed at the back of his wardrobe. His blameless underwear lay impeccably folded in his clothespress. Even his borderline-pornographic reading was neatly stacked on his bedside table. On the dressing table was a pigskin case with his initials on it. Opened, it revealed two old-fashioned silver-backed brushes, a comb and a card. Alleyn showed the card to Wrayburn. “Lt. Col. F. Fleaton Forrester” on one side and on the other, in a sharply pointed hand, “A. Moult. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of a very happy association. F. F.”

When they found Moult’s wallet in a drawer of his dressing table it too proved to be initialled and of pigskin. The card inside, Mrs. Fleaton Forrester’s, said abruptly, “Moult. 1946–1971. B. F.” It contained no money but a list of telephone numbers and three snapshots. The first showed the Colonel in uniform, mounted on a charger, and Sergeant Moult in uniform and on foot saluting him. A round-faced man with monkeylike cheeks heavily scarred. The second showed the Colonel and Mrs. Forrester gazing disconsolately at a tract of moorland and Moult gazing respectfully at them. The third was faded and altogether had the appearance of being much older. It was a snapshot of a younger Moult with one stripe up, holding by the hand an overdressed little girl of about four.

“That’ll be the man himself in all three, will it?” Wrayburn speculated.

“Yes. You notice the scarred face?”

“Married? With a kid?”

“Doesn’t follow as the night the day. It may be anybody’s infant-phenomenon.”

“I suppose so.”

“When my chaps get here,” Alleyn said, “we’ll take dabs. And when we lay the dogs on, we’ll show them one of his shoes. Did I tell you the Colonel also suggested dogs from the Vale? Hullo! Listen to this!”

A hullabaloo of sorts had broken out in the chimney: a confusion of sound, thrown about and distorted, blown down and sucked back as if by some gigantic and inefficient flautist.

“That’s the Nor’east Buster getting up,” Wrayburn said. “That’s bad. That’s a nuisance.”

“Why?”

“It means rain in these parts. Very heavy as a rule.”

“Snow?”

“More likely floods. Here she comes.”

The window rattled violently and was suddenly hit by a great buffet of rain.

“Lovely hunting weather,” Alleyn grunted. “Still — you never know. It may do us more good than harm. We’ll lock up here and penetrate the Forrester suite. Come on.”

They went down to the next floor and walked along the heavily carpeted corridor serving the guest rooms. It was lit by only a third of its shaded wall lamps and very quiet. No rumour of the storm outside or of life within the house. Alleyn supposed the guests and Hilary were all in the dining-room and suddenly felt ravenous. He was about to say so but instead laid his hand on Wrayburn’s arm and motioned him to be quiet. He pointed ahead. From under one of the doors a sliver of light showed on the red carpet.

Alleyn counted doors. Troy had told him which room belonged to which guest. They now approached his dressing-room, linked by a bathroom with Troy’s bedroom. Next came the Forresters’ bedroom, bathroom and dressing-room. Beyond these were Mr. Smith and, on the front corner of the east wing in a large room with its own bathroom, Cressida. Where Hilary himself slept — no doubt in some master apartment of great stateliness — Troy had had no idea.

It was from under the Forresters’ bedroom door that the light showed.

Alleyn listened for a moment and could hear nothing. He made a quick decision. He motioned Wrayburn to stay where he was and himself opened the door and walked straight in.

He did so to the accompaniment of a loud crash.

A man at the window turned to face him: a blond, pale man whom he had seen before, wearing dark trousers and an alpaca jacket.

“Good evening again,” Alleyn said. “I’ve made a mistake. I thought this was my wife’s room.”

“Next door,” the man barely articulated.

“Stupid of me. You must be Nigel, I think.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“I’ve been admiring your work in the courtyard. It really is quite something.”

Nigel’s lips moved. He was saying, inaudibly, “Thank you very much.”

The windowpane behind him streamed with driven rain. His head, face and the front of his jacket were wet.

“You’ve been caught,” Alleyn said lightly.

Nigel said: “It’s come down very sudden. I was — I was closing the window, sir. It’s very awkward, this window.”

“It’ll ruin your snow sculpture, I’m afraid.”

Nigel suddenly said, “It may be a judgment.”

“A judgment? On whom? For what?”

“There’s a lot of sin about,” Nigel said loudly. “One way and another. You never know.”

“Such as?”

“Heathen practices. Disguised as Christian. There’s hints of blasphemy there. Touches of it. If rightly looked at.”

“You mean the Christmas tree?”

“Heathen practices round graven images. Caperings. And see what’s happened to him.”

“What has happened to him?” asked Alleyn and wondered if he’d struck some sort of lunatic bonanza.

“He’s gone.”

“Where?”

“Ah! Where! That’s what sin does for you. I know. Nobody better. Seeing what I been myself.”

Nigel’s face underwent an extraordinary change. His mouth hung open, his nostrils distended, his white eyelashes fluttered and then, like a microcosm of the deluge outside, he wept most copiously.

“Now, look here —” Alleyn began but Nigel with an unconscionable roar fled from the room and went thudding down the corridor.

Wrayburn appeared in the doorway. “What the hell’s all that in aid of?” he asked. “Which of them was it?”

“That was Nigel, the second houseman, who once made effigies but became a religious maniac and killed a sinful lady. He is said to be cured.”

“Cured!”

“Although I believe Mr. Bill-Tasman has conceded that when Nigel remembers his crime he is inclined to weep. He remembered it just now.”

“I overheard some of his remarks. The chap’s certifiable. Religious maniac.”

“I wonder why he leaned out of the window.”

“He did?”

“I fancy so. He was too wet to match his story about just shutting it. And there’s a very little rain on the carpet. I don’t believe it was open until he opened it.”

“Funny!”

“It is, rather. Let’s have a look about, shall we?”

They found nothing in the bedroom more remarkable than the Forresters’ green-lined tropical umbrella. Nigel had turned down their bed, laid out their Viyella nightclothes, and banked up their fire. The windows were shut.

“Wouldn’t you think,” Mr. Wrayburn observed, “that they’d have heaters in these rooms? Look at the work involved! It must be dynamite.”

“He’s trying to re-create the past.”

“He’s lucky to have a lunatic to help him, then.”

They went through the bathroom with its soap, mackintosh and hair lotion smells. Mr. Wrayburn continued to exclaim upon the appointments at Halberds: “Bathrooms! All over the shop like an eight-star-plus hotel. You wouldn’t credit it.” He was somewhat mollified to discover that in the Colonel’s dressing-room a radiator had been built into the grate. It had been switched on, presumably by Nigel. “Look at that!” said Mr. Wrayburn. “What about his electrical bill! No trouble!”

“And here,” Alleyn pointed out, “are the Welsh fire irons. Minus the poker. Highly polished and, of course, never used. I think the relative positions of the fireplace, the bed, the window and the doors are worth noticing, Jack. If you come in from the bathroom, the window’s on your right, the door into the corridor on your left and the bed, projecting from the outside wall facing you, with the fireplace beyond it in the far wall. If I were to sit on the floor on the far side of the bed and you came through the bathroom door, you wouldn’t see me, would you?”

“No?” said Mr. Wrayburn, expecting an elaboration but getting none. Alleyn had moved to the far side of the bed: a single high-standing Victorian four-poster unadorned with curtains. Its authentic patchwork quilt reached to the floor and showed a sharp bulge at one side. He turned it back and exposed Colonel Forrester’s uniform box black-japanned, white-lettered, and quite noticeably dented and scarred about the padlock area.

“I do hate,” Alleyn said, sitting on his heels, “this going on a job minus my kit. It makes one feel such a damned, piddling amateur. However, Fox will bring it and in the meantime I’ve the Bill-Tasman lens. Look here, Jack. Talk of amateurism! This isn’t the handiwork of any master cracksman, is it?”

Mr. Wrayburn squatted down beside him. “Very clumsy attempt,” he agreed. “What’s he think he’d achieve? Silly.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, using the lens, “a bit of hanky-panky with the padlock. Something twisted in the hoop.”

“Like a poker?”

“At first glance perhaps. We’ll have to take charge of this. I’ll talk to the Colonel.”

“What about the contents?”

“It’s big enough, in all conscience, to house the crown jewels but I imagine Mrs. Forrester’s got the lion’s share dotted about her frontage. Troy thinks they carry scrip and documents in it. And you did hear, didn’t you, that Moult has charge of the key?”

Wrayburn, with a hint of desperation in his voice, said, “I don’t know! Like the man said: you wouldn’t credit it if you read it in a book. I suppose we pick the lock for them, do we?”

“Or pick it for ourselves if not for them? I’ll inquire of the Colonel. In the meantime they mustn’t get their hands on it.”

Wrayburn pointed to the scarred area. “By Gum! I reckon it’s the poker,” he said.

“Oh for my Bailey and his dab-kit.”

“The idea being,” Wrayburn continued, following out his thought, “that some villain unknown was surprised trying to break open the box with the poker.”

“And killed? With the poker? After a struggle? That seems to be going rather far, don’t you think? And when you say ‘somebody’ —”

“I suppose I mean Moult.”

“Who preferred taking a very inefficient whang at the box to using the key?”

“That’s right — we dismiss that theory, then. It’s ridiculous. How about Moult coming in after he’d done his Christmas tree act and catching the villain at it and getting knocked on the head?”

“And then—?

“Pushed through the window? With the poker after him?”

“In which case,” Alleyn said, “he was transplanted before they searched. Let’s have a look at the window.”

It was the same as all the others: a sash window with a snib locking the upper to the lower frame.

“We’d better not handle anything. The damn’ bore of it is that with this high standard of house management the whole place will have been dusted off. But if you look out of this window, Jack, it’s at the top of the sapling fir where Bill-Tasman picked up the poker. His study is directly beneath us. And if you leant out and looked to your left, it would be at the southeast corner of the east wing. Hold on a jiffy. Look here.”

“What’s up?”

Alleyn was moving about, close to the window. He dodged his head and peered sideways through the glass.

“Turn off the lights, Jack, will you? There’s something out there — yes, near the top of the fir. It’s catching a stray gleam from somewhere. Take a look.”

Mr. Wrayburn shaded his eyes and peered into the night. “I don’t get anything,” he said. “Unless you mean a little sort of shiny wriggle. You can hardly catch it.”

“That’s it. Quite close. In the fir.”

“Might be anything. Bit of string.”

“Or tinsel?”

“That’s right. Blowing about.”

“So what?”

“So nothing, I daresay. A passing fancy. We’ve still got a hell of a lot to find out. About last night’s ongoings — the order of events and details of procedure and so on.”

“Mrs. Alleyn will be helpful, there, I make no doubt.”

“You know,” Alleyn said, austerely, “my views under that heading, don’t you?”

“That was before you took over, though.”

“So it was. And now I’m in the delirious position of having to use departmental tact and make routine inquiries with my wife.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Wrayburn dimly speculated, “she’ll think it funny.”

Alleyn stared at him. “You know,” he said at last, “you’ve got something there. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she did.” He thought for a moment. “And I daresay,” he said, “that in a macabre sort of way she’ll be, as usual, right. Come on. We’d better complete the survey. I’d like one more look at this blasted padlock, though.”

He was on his knees before it and Wrayburn was peering over his shoulder when Colonel Forrester said: “So you have found it. Good. Good. Good.”

He had come in by the bathroom door behind their backs. He was a little bit breathless but his eyes were bright and he seemed to be quite excited.

“I didn’t join the ladies,” he explained. “I thought I’d just pop up and see if I could be of any use. There may be points you want to ask about. So here I am and you must pack me off if I’m a nuisance. If one wasn’t so worried it would be awfully interesting to see the real thing. Oh — and by the way — your wife tells me that you’re George Alleyn’s brother. He was in the Brigade in my day, you know. Junior to me, of course: an ensign. In the Kiddies, I remember. Coincidence, isn’t it? Do tell me: what did he do after he went on the reserve? Took to the proconsular service, I seem to remember.”

Alleyn answered this inquiry as shortly as, with civility, he could. The Colonel sat on the bed and beamed at him, still fetching his breath rather short but apparently enjoying himself. Alleyn introduced Mr. Wrayburn, whom the Colonel was clearly delighted to meet. “But I oughtn’t to interrupt you both,” he said. “There you are in the thick of it with your magnifying glass and everything. Do tell me: what do you make of my box?”

“I was going to ask you about that, sir,” Alleyn said. “It’s a clumsy attempt, isn’t it?”

“Clumsy? Well, yes. But one couldn’t be anything else but clumsy with a thing like a poker, could one?”

“You know about the poker?”

“Oh rather! Hilary told us.”

“What, exactly, did he tell you?”

“That he’d found one in the fir tree out there. Now, that was a pretty outlandish sort of place for it to be, wasn’t it?”

“Did he describe it?”

The Colonel looked steadily at Alleyn for some seconds. “Not in detail,” he said, and after a further pause: “But in any case when we found the marks on the box we thought: ‘poker,’ B and I, as soon as we saw them.”

“Why did you think ‘poker,’ sir?”

“I don’t know. We just did. ‘Poker,’ we thought. Or B did, which comes to much the same thing. Poker.”

“Had you noticed that the one belonging to this room had disappeared?”

“Oh dear me, no. Not a bit of it. Not at the time.”

“Colonel Forrester, Troy tells me that you didn’t see Moult after he had put on your Druid’s robe.”

“Oh, but I did,” he said, opening his eyes very wide. “I saw him.”

“You did?”

“Well — ‘saw,’ you may call it. I was lying down in our bedroom, you know, dozing, and he came to the bathroom door. He had the robe and the wig on and he held the beard up to show me. I think he said he’d come back before he went down. I think I reminded him about the window and then I did go to sleep, and so I suppose he just looked in and went off without waking me. That’s what Mrs. Alleyn was referring to. I rather fancy, although I may be wrong here, but I rather fancy I heard him look out.”

“Heard him? Look out?”

“Yes. I told him to look out of the dressing-room window for Vincent with the sledge at the corner. Because when Vincent was there it would be time to go down. That was how we laid it on. Dead on the stroke of half-past seven it was to be, by the stable clock. And so it was.”

“What!” Alleyn exclaimed. “You mean —?”

“I like to run an exercise to a strict timetable and so, I’m glad to say, does Hilary. All our watches and clocks were set to synchronize. And I’ve just recollected: I did hear him open the window and I heard the stable clock strike the half-hour immediately afterwards. So, you see, at that very moment Vincent would signal from the corner and Moult would go down to have his beard put on, and — and there you are. That was, you might say, phase one of the exercise, what?”

“Yes, I see. And — forgive me for pressing it, but it is important — he didn’t present himself on his return?”

“No. He didn’t. I’m sure he didn’t,” said the Colonel very doubtfully.

“I mean — could you have still been asleep?”

“Yes!” cried the Colonel as if the Heavens had opened upon supreme enlightenment. “I could! Easily, I could. Of course!”

Alleyn heard Mr. Wrayburn fetch a sigh.

“You see,” the Colonel explained, “I do drop off after my Turns. I think it must be something in the stuff the quack gives me.”

“Yes, I see. Tell me — those fur-lined boots. Would he have put them on up here or in the cloakroom?”

“In the cloakroom. He’d put them all ready down there for me. I wanted to dress up here because of the big looking-glass, but the boots didn’t matter and they’re clumsy things to tramp about the house in.”

“Yes, I see.”

“You do think, don’t you,” asked the Colonel, “that you’ll find him?”

“I expect we will. I hope so.”

“I tell you what, Alleyn,” said the Colonel, and his face became as dolorous as a clown’s. “I’m afraid the poor fellow’s dead.”

“Are you, sir?”

“One shouldn’t say so, of course, at this stage. But — I don’t know — I’m very much afraid my poor old Moult’s dead. He was an awful ass in many ways but we suited each other, he and I. What do you think about it?”

“There’s one possibility,” Alleyn said cautiously.

“I know what you’re going to say. Amnesia. Aren’t you?”

“Something, at any rate, that caused him to leave the cloakroom by the outer door and wander off into the night. Miss Tottenham says he did smell pretty strongly of liquour.”

“Did he? Did he? Yes, well, perhaps in the excitement he may have been silly. In fact — In fact, I’m afraid he was.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because when he found me all tied up in my robe and having a Turn, he helped me out and put me to bed and I must say he smelt most awfully strong of whisky. Reeked. But, if that was the way of it,” the Colonel asked, “where is he? Out on those moors like somebody in a play? On such a night, poor feller? If he’s out there,” said the Colonel with great energy, “he must be found. That should come first. He must be found.”

Alleyn explained that there was a search party on the way. When he said Major Marchbanks was providing police dogs and handlers, the Colonel nodded crisply, rather as if he had ordered this to be done. More and more the impression grew upon Alleyn that here was no ninny. Eccentric in his domestic arrangements Colonel Forrester might be, and unexpected in his conversation, but he hadn’t said anything really foolish about the case. And now when Alleyn broached the matter of the tin box and the dressing-room, the Colonel cut him short.

“You’ll want to lock the place up, no doubt,” he said. “You fellers always lock places up. I’ll tell Moult—” he stopped short and made a nervous movement of his hands. “Force of habit,” he said. “Silly of me. I’ll put my things in the bedroom.”

“Please don’t bother. We’ll attend to it. There’s one thing, though: would you mind telling me what is in the uniform box?”

“In it? Well. Let me see. Papers, for one thing. My commission. Diaries. My Will.” The Colonel caught himself up. “One of them,” he amended. “My investments, scrip or whatever they call them.” Again, there followed one of the Colonel’s brief meditations. “Deeds,” he said. “That kind of thing. B’s money: some of it. She likes to keep a certain amount handy. Ladies do, I’m told. And the jewels she isn’t wearing. Those sorts of things. Yes.”

Alleyn explained that he would want to test the box for fingerprints, and the Colonel instantly asked if he might watch. “It would interest me no end,” he said. “Insufflators and latent ones and all that. I read a lot of detective stories: awful rot, but they lead you on. B reads them backwards but I won’t let her tell me.”

Alleyn managed to steer him away from this theme and it was finally agreed that they would place the box, intact, in the dressing-room wardrobe pending the arrival of the party from London. The Colonel’s effects having been removed to the bedroom, the wardrobe and the dressing-room itself would then be locked and Alleyn would keep the keys.

Before these measures were completed, Mrs. Forrester came tramping in.

“I thought as much,” she said to her husband.

“I’m all right, B. It’s getting jolly serious, but I’m all right. Really.”

“What are you doing with the box? Good evening,” Mrs. Forrester added, nodding to Mr. Wrayburn.

Alleyn explained. Mrs. Forrester fixed him with an embarrassing glare but heard him through.

“I see,” she said. “And is Moult supposed to have been interrupted trying to open it with the poker, when he had the key in his pocket?”

“Of course not, B. We all agree that would be a silly idea.”

“Perhaps you think he’s murdered and his body’s locked up in the box.”

“Really, my dear!”

“The one notion’s as silly as the other.”

“We don’t entertain either of them, B. Do we, Alleyn?”

“Mrs. Forrester,” Alleyn said, “what do you think has happened? Have you a theory?”

“No,” said Mrs. Forrester. “It’s not my business to have theories. Any more than it’s yours, Fred,” she tossed as an aside to her husband. “But I do throw this observation out, as a matter you may like to remember, that Moult and Hilary’s murderers were at loggerheads.”

“Why?”

“Why! Why, because Moult’s the sort of person to object to them. Old soldier-servant. Service in the Far East. Seen plenty of the seamy side and likes things done according to the Queen’s regulations. Regimental snobbery. Goes right through the ranks. Thinks this lot a gang of riffraff and lets them know it.”

“I tried,” said the Colonel, “to get him to take a more enlightened view but he couldn’t see it, poor feller, he couldn’t see it.”

“Was he married?”

“No,” they both said and Mrs. Forrester added: “Why?”

“There’s a snapshot in his pocket-book —”

“You’ve found him!” she ejaculated with a violence that seemed to shock herself as well as her hearers.

Alleyn explained.

“I daresay,” the Colonel said, “it’s some little girl in the married quarters. One of his brother-soldiers’ children. He’s fond of children.”

“Come to bed, Fred.”

“It isn’t time, B.”

“Yes, it is. For you.”

Mr. Wrayburn, who from the time Mrs. Forrester appeared had gone quietly about the business of removing the Colonel’s effects to the bedroom, now returned to say he hoped they’d find everything in order. With an air that suggested they’d better or else, Mrs. Forrester withdrew her husband, leaving both doors into the bathroom open, presumably with the object of keeping herself informed of their proceedings.

Alleyn and Wrayburn lifted the box by its end handles into the wardrobe, which they locked. Alleyn walked over to the window, stood on a Victorian footstool, and peered for some time through Hilary’s glass at the junction of the two sashes. “This hasn’t been dusted, at least,” he muttered, “but much good will that be to us, I don’t mind betting.” He prowled disconsolately.

Colonel Forrester appeared in the bathroom door in his pyjamas and dressing-gown. He made apologetic faces at them, motioned with his head in the direction of his wife, bit his underlip, shut the door, and could be heard brushing his teeth.

“He’s a caution, isn’t he?” Mr. Wrayburn murmured.

Alleyn moved alongside his colleague and pointed to the window.

Rain still drove violently against the pane, splayed out and ran down in sheets. The frame rattled intermittently. Alleyn turned out the lights, and at once the scene outside became partly visible. The top of the fir tree thrashed about dementedly against an oncoming multitude of glistening rods across which, in the distance, distorted beams of light swept and turned.

“Chaps from the Vale. Or my lot.”

“Look at that sapling fir.”

“Whipping about like mad, isn’t it? That’s the Buster. Boughs broken. Snow blown out of it. It’s a proper shocker, the Buster is.”

“There is something caught up in it. Do you see? A tatter of something shiny?”

“Anything might be blown into it in this gale.”

“It’s on the lee side. Still — I suppose you’re right. We’d better go down. You go first, will you, Jack? I’ll lock up here. By the way, they’ll want that shoe of Moult’s to lay the dogs on. But what a hope!”

“What about one of his fur-lined boots in the cloakroom?”

Alleyn hesitated and then said: “Yes. All right. Yes.”

“See you downstairs then.”

“O.K.”

Wrayburn went out. Alleyn pulled the curtains across the window. He waited for a moment in the dark room and was about to cross it when the door into the bathroom opened and admitted a patch of reflected light. He stood where he was. A voice, scarcely articulate, without character, breathed: “Oh,” and the door closed.

He waited. Presently he heard a tap turned on and sundry other sounds of activity.

He locked the bathroom door, went out by the door into the corridor, locked it, pocketed both keys, took a turn to his left, and was in time to see Troy going into her bedroom.

He slipped in after her and found her standing in front of her fire.

“You dodge down passages like Alice’s rabbit,” he said. “Don’t look doubtfully at me. Don’t worry. You aren’t here, my love. We can’t help this. You aren’t here.”

“I know.”

“It’s silly. It’s ludicrous.”

“I’m falling about, laughing.”

“Troy?”

“Yes. All right. I’ll expect you when I see you.”

“And that won’t be —”

Troy had lifted her hand. “What?” he asked, and she pointed to her built-in wardrobe. “You can hear the Forresters,” she said, “if you go in there and if they’ve left their wardrobe door open. I don’t suppose they have and I don’t suppose you want to. Why should you? But you can.”

He walked over to the wardrobe and stuck his head inside. The sound of voices in tranquil conversation reached him, the Colonel’s near at hand, Mrs. Forrester’s very distant. She’s still in the bathroom, Alleyn thought. Suddenly there was a rattle of coat hangers and the Colonel, startlingly close at hand, said, “— jolly difficult to replace —” and a few seconds later: “Yes, all right, I know. Don’t fuss me.”

Silence: Alleyn turned back into the room.

“On Christmas morning,” Troy said, “just after midnight, when I hung my dress in there, I heard them having what sounded like a row.”

“Oh?”

“Well — just one remark from the Colonel. He said something was absolutely final and if she didn’t he would. He sounded very unlike himself. And then she banged a door — their bathroom door, I suppose, and I could hear her barking her way into bed. I remembered my manners with an effort and wrenched myself away.”

“Curious,” Alleyn said and after a moment’s consideration: “I must be off.”

He was halfway across the room when Mrs. Forrester screamed.