Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

“Have there been any developments?” Troy asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Yes. I was leading up to them. I–I haven’t made it generally known as yet. I thought I would prefer —”

Cressida came in and Hilary madly welcomed her as if they had been parted for a week. She stared at him in amazement. On being introduced to Alleyn she gave herself a second or two to run over his points and from then until the end of the affair at Halberds made a dead set at him.

Cressida was not, Troy had to admit, a gross practitioner. She kept fractionally to the right of a frontal attack. Her method embraced the attentive ear, the slight smile of understanding, the very occasional glance. She made avoidance about ninety per cent more equivocal than an accidental brush of the hands, though that was not lacking either, Troy noticed, when Cressida had her cigarette lit.

Troy wondered if she always went into action when confronted with a personable man or if Alleyn had made a smash hit. Was Hilary at all affected by the manifestations? But Hilary, clearly, was fussed by other matters and his agitation increased when Mrs. Forrester came in.

She, in her way, also made a dead set at Alleyn, but her technique was widely different. She barely waited for the introduction.

“Just as well you’ve come,” she said. “High time. Now we shall be told what to do.”

“Aunt Bed — we mustn’t —”

“Nonsense, Hilary. Why else have you dragged him all this way? Not,” she added as an afterthought, “that he’s not pleased to see his wife, of course.”

“I’m delighted to see her,” said Alleyn.

“Who wouldn’t be!” Hilary exclaimed. Really, Troy thought, he was showing himself in a most peculiar light.

“Well?” Mrs. Forrester began on a rising inflexion.

Hilary intervened. He said, with a show of firmness, that perhaps a little consultation in the study might be an idea. When his aunt tried to cut in he talked her down, and as he talked he seemed to gain authority. In the upshot he took Alleyn by the elbow and, coruscating with feverish jokelets, piloted him out of the boudoir.

“Darling!” said Cressida to Troy before the door had shut. “Your husband! You know? And I mean this. The mostest.”

The study was in the east wing, next door to the boudoir. Hilary fussed about, turning on lamps and offering Alleyn tea (which he and Troy had missed), or a drink. “Such a mongrel time of day, I always think,” he said. “Are you sure you won’t?”

Alleyn said he was sure. “You want to talk about this business, don’t you?” he asked. “Troy’s told me the whole story. I think you should call your local police.”

“She said you’d say that. I did hope you wouldn’t mind if I just consulted you first.”

“Of course I don’t. But it’s getting on for twenty-four hours, isn’t it? I really don’t think you should wait any longer. It might be best to call up your provincial Detective-Superintendent. Do you know him?”

“Yes. Most uncongenial. Beastly about the staff. I really couldn’t.”

“All right. Where’s the nearest station? Downlow?”

“Yes. I believe so. Yes.”

“Isn’t the super there a chap called Wrayburn?”

“I–I did think of consulting Marchbanks. At the Vale, you know.”

“I’m sure he’d give you the same advice.”

“Oh!” Hilary cried out. “And I’m sure you’re right but I do dislike this sort of thing. I can’t expect you to understand, of course, but the staff here — they won’t like it either. They’ll hate it. Policemen all over the house. Asking questions. Upsetting them like anything.”

“I’m afraid they’ll have to lump it, you know.”

“Oh damn !” Hilary said pettishly. “All right. I’m sorry, Alleyn. I’m being disagreeable.”

“Ring Wrayburn up and get it over. After all, isn’t it just possible that Moult, for some reason that hasn’t appeared, simply walked down the drive and hitched a lift to the nearest station? Has anyone looked to see if his overcoat and hat and money are in his room?”

“Yes. Your wife thought of that. Nothing missing, as far as we could make out.”

“Well — ring up.”

Hilary stared at him, fetched a deep sigh, sat down at his desk, and opened his telephone directory.

Alleyn walked over to the window and looked out. Beyond the reflected image of the study he could distinguish a mass of wreckage — shattered glass, rubbish, trampled weeds and, rising out of them close at hand, a young fir with some of its boughs broken. Troy had shown him the view from her bedroom and he realized that this must be the sapling that grew beneath Colonel Forrester’s dressing-room window. It was somewhere about here, then, that she had seen Vincent dispose of the Christmas tree at midnight. Here, too, Vincent and his helpers had been trampling about with garden forks and spades when Troy left for Downlow. Alleyn shaded the pane and moved about until he could eliminate the ghostly study and look further into the dark ruin outside. Now he could make out the Christmas tree, lying in a confusion of glass, soil and weeds.

A fragment of tinsel still clung to one of its branches and was caught in the lamplight.

Hilary had got his connection. With his back to Alleyn he embarked on a statement to Superintendent Wrayburn of the Downlow Constabulary and, all things considered, made a pretty coherent job of it. Alleyn, in his day, had been many, many times rung up by persons in Hilary’s position who had given a much less explicit account of themselves. As Troy had indicated: Hilary was full of surprises.

Now he carefully enunciated details. Names. Times. A description. Mr. Wrayburn was taking notes.

“I’m much obliged to you,” Hilary said. “There is one other point, Superintendent. I have staying with me —”

“Here we go,” Alleyn thought.

Hilary screwed round in his chair and made a deprecatory face at him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. At his suggestion, actually. He’s with me now. Would you like to speak to him? Yes, by all means.” He held out the receiver.

“Hullo,” Alleyn said, “Mr. Wrayburn?”

“Would this be Chief-Superintendent Alleyn?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, well, well. Long time,” said Mr. Wrayburn brightly, “no see. When was that case? Back in ’65.”

“That’s it. How are you, Jack?”

“Can’t complain. I understand there’s some bother up your way?”

“Looks like it.”

“What are you doing there, Chief?”

“I’m an accident. It’s none of my business.”

“But you reckon we ought to take a wee look-see?”

“Your D.C.C. would probably say so. Somebody ought to, I fancy.”

“It’s a cold, cold world. I was counting on a nice quiet Christmas. So what happens? A church robbery, a suspected arson, and three fatal smashes in my district and half my chaps down with flu. And now this. And look at you! You’re living it up, aren’t you? Seats of the Mighty?”

“You’ll come up, then, Jack?”

“That’s correct.”

“Good. And Jack — for your information, it’s going to be a search-party job.”

“Well, ta for the tip anyway. Over and out.”

Alleyn hung up. He turned to find Hilary staring at him over his clasped hands.

“Well,” Hilary said. “I’ve done it. Haven’t I?”

“It really was advisable, you know.”

“You don’t — You don’t ask me anything. Any questions about that wretched little man. Nothing.”

“It’s not my case.”

“You talk,” Hilary said crossly, “like a doctor.”

“Do I?”

“Etiquette. Protocol.”

“We have our little observances.”

“It would have been so much pleasanter — I’d made up my mind I’d — I’d —”