Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

“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.”