Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

“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?”