Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

Margaret Barrimore turned her head and, for the first time, looked at her husband. Her expression, one of profound astonishment, was reflected in her son’s face and Dr. Mayne’s.

“There is no doubt, I think,” Alleyn said, “that during her first visit to the Island their relationship, however brief, had been of the sort to give rise to the later reaction.”

“Is this true?” Dr. Mayne demanded of Barrimore. He had the towel clapped to his face. Over the top of it his eyes, prominent and dazed, narrowed as if he were smiling. He said nothing.

“Miss Cost, as I said just now, kept her knowledge to herself. Later, it appears, she transferred her attention to Dr. Mayne and was unsuccessful. It’s a painful and distressing story and I shan’t dwell on it except to say that up to yesterday’s tragedy we have the picture of a neurotic who has discovered that the man upon whom her fantasy is now concentrated is deeply attached to the wife of the man with whom she herself had a brief affair that ended in humiliation. She also knows that this wife impersonated the Green Lady in the original episode. These elements are so bound up together that if she makes mischief, as her demon urges her to do, she will be obliged to expose the truth about the Green Lady — and that would be disastrous. Add to this the proposal to end all publicity and official recognition of the spring, and you get some idea, perhaps, of the emotional turmoil that she suffered and that declares itself in this unhappy diary.”

“You do, indeed,” said Miss Emily abruptly and added: “One has much to answer for, I perceive. I have much to answer for. Go on.”

“In opposing the new plans for the spring, Miss Cost may have let off a head of emotional steam. She sent anonymous messages to Miss Pride. She was drawn into the companionship of the general front made against Miss Pride’s intentions. I think there is little doubt that she conspired with Trehern, and egged on ill-feeling in the village. She had received attention. She had her Festival in hand. She was somebody. It was, I daresay, all rather exciting and gratifying. Wouldn’t you think so?” he asked Dr. Mayne.

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” he said. “But, yes. You may be right.”

“Now, this was the picture,” Alleyn went on, “up to the time of the Festival. But when she came to write the final entry in her diary, which was last night, something had happened: something that had revived all her sense of injury and spite, something that led her to write: ‘Both — all of them — shall suffer. I’ll drag their names through the papers. Now. Tonight. I am determined. It is the end.’ ”

Another formidable onslaught roared down upon the Boy-and-Lobster and again the lights wavered and recovered.

“She doesn’t say, and we can’t tell, positively, what inflamed her. I am inclined to think that it might be put down to aesthetic humiliation.”

“What!” Patrick ejaculated.

“Yes. One has to remember that all the first-night agonies that beset a professional director are also visited upon the most ludicrously inefficient amateur. Miss Cost had produced a show and exposed it to an audience. However bad the show, she still had to undergo the classic ordeal. The reaction among some of the onlookers didn’t escape her notice.”

“Oh dear!” Jenny said. “Oh dear !”

“But this is all speculation, and a policeman is not allowed to speculate,” Alleyn said. “Let us get back to hard facts, if we can. Here are some of them: Miss Cost attended early service this morning and afterwards walked to the spring to collect a necklace. It was in her hand when we found her. We know, positively, that she encountered and spoke to three people: Mrs. Carstairs and Dr. Mayne before church; Major Barrimore afterwards.”

“Suppose I deny that?” Barrimore said thickly.

“I can’t, of course, make any threats or offer any persuasion. You might, on consideration, think it wiser, after all, to agree that you met and tell me what passed between you. Major Barrimore,” Alleyn explained generally, “has already admitted that he was spying upon Miss Pride, who had gone to the enclosure to put up a notice which he afterwards removed.”

Miss Emily gave a sharp exclamation.

“It was later replaced.” Alleyn turned to Barrimore and stood over him. “Shall I tell you what I think happened? I think hard words passed between you and Miss Cost, and that she was stung into telling you her secret. I think you parted from her in a rage, and that when you came back to the hotel this morning you bullied your wife. You had better understand, at once, that your wife has not told me this. Finally, I believe that Miss Cost may even have threatened to reveal your former relationship with herself. She suggests in her diary that she has some such intention. Now. Have you anything to say to all this?”

Patrick said: “You had better say nothing.” He walked over to his mother and put his arm about her shoulders.

“I didn’t do it,” Barrimore said. “I didn’t kill her.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. I shall move on,” Alleyn said and spoke generally. “Among her papers, we have found a typewritten list of dates. It is a carbon copy. The top copy is missing. Miss Cost had fallen into the habit of sending anonymous letters. As we know, only too well, this habit grows by indulgence. It is possible, having regard for the dates in question, that this document has been brought to the notice of the person most likely to be disturbed by it. Possibly, with a print of a photograph. Now, this individual has, in one crucial respect, given a false statement as to time and circumstance, and because of that—”

There was a tap at the door. Fox opened it. A voice in the passage shouted: “I can’t wait quietlike, mister. I got to see ’im.” It was Trehern.

Fox said: “Now then, what’s all this?” and began to move out. Trehern plunged at him, head down, and was taken in a half-nelson. Bailey appeared in the doorway. “You lay your hands off of me,” Trehern whined. “You got nothing against me.”

“Outside,” said Fox.

Trehern, struggling, looked wildly around the assembled company and fixed on Alleyn. “I got something to tell you, mister,” he said. “I got something to put before all of you. I got to speak out.”

“All right, Fox,” Alleyn said, and nodded to Bailey — who went out and shut the door. Fox relaxed his hold. “Well, Trehern, what is it?”

Trehern wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and blinked. “I been thinking,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I been thinking things over. Ever since you come at me up to my house and acted like you done and made out what you made out, which is not the case. I bean’t a quick-brained chap, mister, but the light has broke and I see me way clear. I got to speak, and speak public.”

“Very well. What do you want to say?”

“Don’t you rush me, now, mister. What I got to say is a mortal serious matter and I got to take my time.”

“Nobody’s rushing you.”

“No, nor they better not,” he said. His manner was half-truculent, half-cringing. “It concerns this-yurr half-hour in time which was the matter which you flung in my teeth. So fur so good. Now. This-yurr lady”—he ducked his head at Miss Emily—“tells you she seen my lil’ chap in the road roundabouts twenty to eight on this-yurr fatal morning. Right?”

“Certainly,” said Miss Pride.

“Much obliged. And I says, So she might of, then, for all I know to the contrariwise, me being asleep in my bed. And I says I uprose at five past eight. Correct?”

“That’s what you said, yes.”

“And God’s truth if I never speak another word. And my lil’ chap was then to home in my house. Right. Now, then. Furthermore to that, you says the Doctor saw him at that same blessed time, twenty to eight, which statement agrees with the lady.”