Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

A drive of some twelve miles brought her to her destination. The late afternoon sun shone bravely, there was an air of normality and self-containment about the small country town of Downlow. Troy drove along the main street to the station, parked her car, and went through the office to the platform. Here, in the familiar atmosphere of paste, disinfectant and travel posters, Halberds seemed absurd and faintly distasteful.

She was early and walked up and down the platform, partly to keep warm and partly to work off her overstimulated sense of anticipation. Strange notions came into her head. As, for instance, would Cressida in — say — ten years’ time, feel more or less like this if she had been absent from Hilary for three weeks? Was Cressida much in love with Hilary? Did she passionately want to be mistress of Halberds? Judging by those representatives of county families who had rather uneasily attended the party, Cressida was unlikely to find a kindred spirit among them. Perhaps she and Hilary would spend most of their time in their S.W.1 flat, which Troy supposed to be on a pretty lavish scale. Would they take some of their murderers to look after them when they came up to London? Troy found that she felt uneasy about Cressida and obscurely sorry for her.

With a loud clank the signal arm jerked up. A porter and one or two other persons strolled onto the platform, and from down the line came the banshee whistle of the London train.

“Mind? Of course I don’t mind,” Alleyn said. “I thought I should be hanging about the flat waiting for you to come home! Instead of which, here we are, bold as brass, driving somebody else’s car through a Christmas tree landscape and suiting each other down to the ground. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’ve no complaints.”

“In that case you must now tell me what’s up in the Bill-Tasman outfit. You sounded greatly put out this morning.”

“Yes, well… all right. Hold on to your hat and fetch up all your willing suspension of unbelief. You’ll need it.”

“I’ve heard of Bill-Tasman’s experiment with villains for flunkies. Your letter seemed to suggest that it works.”

“That was early days. That was a week ago. I didn’t write again because there wasn’t time. Now, listen.”

“ ‘ List, list, O list .’ ”

“Yes, well, it’s an earful.”

“ ‘ Speak, I am bound to hear. ’ ”

“Rory! Don’t be a detective.”

“Oops! Sorry.”

“Here I go, then.”

Troy had got about a third of the way through her narrative when her husband stopped her.

“I suppose,” he said, “I have to take it that you are not making this up as you go along.”

“I’m not even making the most of my raw material. Which part do you find difficult to absorb?”

“My trouble is quantitative rather than particular, but I find I jib at Aunt Bed. I don’t know why. I suppose she’s not somebody in disguise and camping it up?”

“That really would be a more appropriate theory for Mr. Smith.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn. “I know about your Mr. Smith. The firm of Bill-Tasman and Smith is at the top of the British if not the European antiquarian trade, and Albert Smith, from the police angle, is as pure as the driven snow. We’ve sought their opinions before now in cases of fraud, robbery from collections, and art forgeries. He started as a barrow-boy, he had a flair, and with the aid of Bill-Tasman, Senior, he got to the top. It’s not an unusual story, darling. It’s merely an extreme example. Press on.”

Troy pressed on with mileage and narrative. They reached the signpost for the Vale turn-off and began to climb the lower-reaches of the moors. Patches of snow appeared. In the far distance, Troy thought she recognized the high tor above the Vale.

Alleyn became quieter and quieter. Every now and then he questioned her and once or twice asked her to go over the ground again. She had got as far as the anonymous messages and the booby-trap when she interrupted herself. “Look,” she said. “See those plumes of smoke beyond the trees? We’re nearly there. That’s Halberds.”

“Could you pull up? I’d like to hear the lot while we’re at it.”

“O.K.”

She turned the car on to the verge of the road and stopped the engine. The sky had begun to darken, mist rose from hollows and blurred their windscreen. Rime glittered on a roadside briar.

“You must be starved with cold after Sydney in midsummer.”

“I’m treble-sweatered and quilted. Carry on, my love.”

Ten minutes later Troy said, “And that’s it. When I left, Vincent and some chaps were tramping about with forks and spades in the ruins of the conservatory.”

“Has Bill-Tasman reported to his local police?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He damn’ well ought to.”

“I think he’s holding back for you.”

“Like hell he is!”

“For your advice.”

“Which will be to call up the local station. What else, for pity’s sake? What’s he like , Bill-Tasman? He sounded precious on the telephone.”

“He’s a bit like a good-looking camel. Very paintable.”

“If you say so, darling.”

“He’s intelligent, affected and extremely companionable.”

“I see. And what about this chap Moult? Does he drink, did you say?”

“According to Aunt Bed, occasionally.”

“Jim Marchbanks is at the Vale.”

“I forgot to tell you — we’ve chummed up.”

“Have you now? Nice creature, isn’t he?”

They were silent for a minute or so. Presently Alleyn said his wife’s nose was as cold as an iced cherry but not as red. After a further interval she said she thought they should move on.

When they reached the turn in the drive where Halberds was fully revealed, Alleyn said that everything had become as clear as mud: Troy had obviously got herself into a film production, on location, of The Castle of Otranto and had been written into the script as the best way of keeping her quiet.

Blore and Mervyn came out to meet them. They both seemed to Troy to be excessively glum faced but their behaviour was impeccable. Mervyn, carrying Alleyn’s suitcase, led the way upstairs to a dressing-room on the far side of Troy’s bathroom and connecting with it.

“Mr. Bill-Tasman is in the boudoir, madam,” said Mervyn with his back to Alleyn. He cast a rather wild glance at Troy and withdrew.

“Is that chap’s name Cox?” Alleyn asked.

“I’ve no idea.”

“Mervyn Cox. Booby-trap. Flat iron. Killed Warty Thompson the cat-burglar. That’s the boy.”

“Did you —?”

“No. One of Fox’s cases. I just remembered.”

“I’m certain he didn’t rig that thing up for me.”

“You may well be right. Suspect anyone else?”

“No. Unless —”

“Unless?”

“It’s so farfetched. It’s just that there does appear to have been some sort of feud between Moult and the staff.”

“And Moult fixed the things up to look like Mervyn’s job? And wrote the messages in the same spirit? Out of spite?”

“He doesn’t seem to be particularly spiteful.”

“No?”

“He obviously adores the Colonel. You know — one of those unquestioning, dogged sort of attachments.”

“I know.”

“So what?”

“Well may you ask. What’s he like to look at?”

“Oh — rather upsetting, poor chap. He’s got a scarred face. Burns, I should imagine.”

“Come here to me.”

“I think you’d better meet Hilary.”

“Blast Hilary,” said Alleyn. “All right. I suppose so.”

It was abundantly clear to Troy, when they found Hilary alone in the boudoir, that something had been added to the tale of inexplicable events. He greeted Alleyn with almost feverish enthusiasm. He gushed about the portrait (presently they would look at it), and he also gushed about Troy, who refused to catch her husband’s eye. He talked more than a little wildly about Alleyn’s welcome return from the Antipodes. He finally asked, with a strange and most unsuccessful attempt at off-handedness, if Troy had told Alleyn of their “little mystery.” On hearing that she had he exclaimed, “No, but isn’t it a bore? I do so hate mysteries, don’t you? No, I suppose you don’t, as you perpetually solve them.”