Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

“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.

Colonel Forrester lay in a little heap face down under the window. He looked small and accidental. His wife, in her red dressing gown, knelt beside him, and as Troy and Alleyn entered the room, was in the act of raising him to a sitting position. Alleyn helped her.

Troy said, “He takes something, doesn’t he?”

“Tablets. Bedside table. And water.”

He was leaning back in his wife’s arms now, his eyes wide open and terrified and his head moving very slightly in time with his breathing. Her thin plait of hair dangled over him.

“It’s not here,” Troy said.

“Must be. Pill things. Capsules. He put them there. Be quick.”

Alleyn said: “Try his dressing gown pocket, if you can reach it. Wait. I will.” It was empty.

“I saw them. I reminded him. You haven’t looked. Fred! Fred, you’re all right, old man. I’m here.”

“Truly,” said Troy. “They’re not anywhere here. How about brandy?”

“Yes. His flask’s in the middle drawer. Dressing table.”

It was there. Troy unscrewed the top and gave it to her. Alleyn began casting about the room.

“That’ll be better. Won’t it, Fred? Better?”

Troy brought a glass of water but was ignored. Mrs. Forrester held the mouth of the flask between her husband’s lips. “Take it, Fred,” she said. “Just a sip. Take it. You must. That’s right. Another.”

Alleyn said: “Here we are!”