Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

Alleyn had taken out his pipe and was filling it. “Is that what you want to tell me, Mr. Smith?” he asked. “Do you think someone’s pulling a stroke on me?”

“I don’t say that. They may be, but I don’t say so. No, my idea is that it must come in handy in your job to know what sort of characters you’re dealing with. Right?”

“Are you offering,” Alleyn said lightly, “to give me a breakdown on the inhabitants of Halberds?”

“That’s your definition, not mine. All right, I’m thinking of personalities. Like I said. Character. I’d of thought in your line, character would be a big consideration.”

Alleyn fished out a glowing clinker with the fire-tongs. “It depends,” he said, lighting his pipe. “We deal in hard, bumpy facts and they can be stumbling blocks in the path of apparent character. People, to coin a bromide, can be amazingly contradictory.” He looked at Mr. Smith. “All the same, if you’re going to give me an expert’s opinion on—” he waved his hand “— on the collection here assembled, I’ll be very interested.”

There was no immediate answer. Alleyn looked at Mr. Smith and wondered if he were to define his impression in one word, what that word would be. “Sharp”? “Cagey”? “Inscrutable”? In the bald head with streaks of black hair trained across it, the small bright eyes and compressed lips, he found a predatory character. A hard man. But was that hindsight? What would he have made of Mr. Smith if he’d known nothing about him?

“I assure you,” he repeated, “I’ll be very interested,” and sat down in one of two great porter’s chairs that flanked the fireplace.

Mr. Smith stared at him pretty fixedly. He took out his cigar case, helped himself, and sat in the other chair. To anyone coming into the hall and seeing them, they would have looked like subjects for a Christmas Annual illustration called “The Cronies.”

Mr. Smith cut his cigar, removed the band, employed a gold lighter, emitted smoke, and contemplated it. “For a start,” he said. “I was fond of Alf Moult.”

It was a curious little story of an odd acquaintanceship. Mr. Smith knew Moult when Hilary was a young man living with the Forresters in Hans Place. The old feud had long ago died out and Mr. Smith made regular visits to luncheon on Sundays. Sometimes he would arrive early before the Forresters had returned from church, and Moult would show him into the Colonel’s study. At first Moult was very standoffish, having a profound mistrust of persons of his own class who had hauled themselves up by their bootstraps. Gradually, however, this prejudice was watered down if never entirely obliterated, and an alliance was formed: grudging, Alleyn gathered, on Moult’s part but cordial on Mr. Smith’s. He became somebody with whom Moult could gossip. And gossip he did, though never about the Colonel, to whom he was perfectly devoted.

He would talk darkly about unnamed persons who exploited the Colonel, about tradesmen’s perfidy and the beastliness of female servants of whom he was palpably jealous.

“By and large,” said Mr. Smith, “he was a jealous kind of bloke.” And waited for comment.

“Did he object to the adopted nephew under that heading?”

“To ’Illy? Well — kind of sniffy on personal lines, like he made work about the place and was late for meals. That style of thing.”

“He didn’t resent him?”

Mr. Smith said quickly, “No more than he did anybody else that interfered with routine. He was a caution on routine, was Alf. ’Course he knew I wouldn’t —” He hesitated.

“Wouldn’t?” Alleyn prompted.

“Wouldn’t listen to anything against the boy,” said Mr. Smith shortly.

“How about Miss Tottenham? How did she fit in with Moult’s temperament?”

“The glamour girl? I’m talking about twenty years ago. She was — what? — three? I never see ’er, but they talked about ’er. She was being brought up by some posh family what was down on its uppers and needed the cash. Proper class lot. Alf used to rave about ’er and I will say the result bears ’im out.” The unelevating shadow of a leer slipped over Mr. Smith’s face and slid away again. “Bit of all right,” he said.

“Has Moult ever expressed an opinion about the engagement?”

“He’s human. Or was, which ever it is, poor bloke. He made out ’Illy was a very, very lucky man. Raved about ’er, Alf did, like I said, and wouldn’t hear a word to the contrary. That was because the Colonel took an interest in ’er and nothing the Colonel did was wrong in Alf’s book. And it seems ’er old pot was killed saving the Colonel’s life, which would make ’im a bleedin’ ’ero. So there you were.”

“You approve of the engagement?”

“It’s not official yet, is it? Oh, yes. ’Illy’s a good picker. You know. In the trade or out of it. Knows a nice piece when ’e sees one. She may be pushing the spoilt beauty bit now but he knows the answers to that one and no error. Oh, yes,” Mr. Smith repeated, quizzing the top of his cigar. “I know about the Bill-Tasman image. Funny. Vague. Eccentric. Comes in nice and handy that lot, more ways than one. But ’e won’t stand for any funny business, don’t worry, in work or pleasure. She’ll ’ave to be a good girl and I reckon she knows it.”

Alleyn waited for a moment and then said: “I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you this. There’s a theory in circulation that Moult was responsible for the practical jokes, if they can be so called.”

Mr. Smith became vociferous. “Don’t give me that one, chum,” he said. “That’s just silly, that is. Alf Moult put soap in my barley water? Not on your nelly. Him and me was pals, wasn’t we? Right? Well, then: arst yourself.”

“He didn’t like the staff here, did he?”

“ ’Course ’e didn’t. Thought they was shockers and so they are. That lot! But that’s not to say ’e’d try to put their pot on, writing silly messages and playing daft tricks. Alf Moult! Do me a favour!”

“You may not have heard,” Alleyn said, “of all the other incidents. A booby-trap, in the Mervyn manner, set for my wife.”

“Hullo-ullo! I thought there was something there.”

“Did you? There was a much nastier performance this evening. After Nigel went his rounds and before Colonel Forrester went to bed, somebody wedged the window in their room. The strain of trying to open it brought on an attack.”

“There you are! Poor old Colonel. Another turn! And that wasn’t done by Alf Moult, was it!”

“Who would you think was responsible?”

“Nigel. Simple.”

“No. Not Nigel, Mr. Smith. Nigel shut the window when I was in the room and then ran downstairs bellowing about his own troubles.”

“Came back, then.”

“I don’t think so. There’s too narrow a margin in time. Of course we’ll want to know who was in that part of the house just then. And if anyone can —”

“ ‘Help the police,’ ” Mr. Smith nastily suggested, “ ‘in the execution of their duty.’ ”

“Quite so.”

“I can’t. I was in the library with ’Illy.”

“All the evening?”

“All the evening.”

“I see.”

“Look! This carry-on — notes and soap and booby-traps — brainless, innit? Nobody at home where it come from. Right? So where’s the type that fits—? Only one in this establishment and he’s the one with the opportunity? Never mind the wedge. That may be different. It’s obvious.”

“Nigel?”

“That’s right! Must be. Mr. Flippin’ Nigel. In and out of the princely apart-e-mongs all day. Dropping notes and mixing soapy nightcaps.”

“We’ll find out about the wedge.”

“You will?”