Ngaio Marsh - Hand in Glove

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Bimbo went on. “He said: ‘And that disposes of Mr. Harold Cartell for keeps.’ And she said something like: ‘When do you think they’ll find it?’ and he said: ‘In the morning, probably. Not windy, are you? For Christ’s sake, keep your head: we’re in the clear.’ ”

With this piece of reportage, spurious or not as the case might prove to be, it appeared that Bimbo had reached saturation point as a useful witness. He had nothing more to offer. After noticing that a good deal of unopened mail lay on the desk, including several bills and a letter from a solicitor, addressed to Benedict Arthur Dodds, Alleyn secured Bimbo’s uneasy offer to sign a statement and took his leave.

“Please don’t move,” Alleyn said politely, “I can find my way out.” Before Bimbo could put himself in motion, Alleyn had gone out and shut the study door behind him.

In the hall, not altogether to his surprise, he found Désirée. She was, if anything, a little wilder in her general appearance, and Alleyn wondered if this was to be attributed to another tot of brandy. But in all other respects she seemed to be more or less herself.

“Hullo,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you. There’s a sort of crise .”

“What sort?”

“It may not be a crise at all, but I thought I’d better tall you. I really feel a bit awkward about it. I seem to have made a clanger, showing you P.P.’s funny letter. It wasn’t meant for me.”

“Who was it meant for?”

“He wouldn’t say. He’s just rung up in a frightful taking-on, asking me to throw it on the fire and forget about it. He went on at great length, talking about his grand ancestors and I don’t know what else.”

“You didn’t tell him I’d seen the letter?”

Désirée looked fixedly at him. “No,” she said. “I didn’t, but I felt like a housemaid who’s broken a cup. Poor P.P. What can it all be about? He is so fussed — you can’t imagine.”

“Never mind,” Alleyn said, “I daresay it’s only his overdeveloped social sense.”

“Well, I know. All the same…” She put her hand on his arm. “Rory,” she said, “if you don’t awfully mind, don’t tell him I gave you the letter. He’d think me such a sweep .”

At that moment Alleyn liked her very much. “I won’t tell him,” he said carefully, “unless I have to. And for your part, I’ll be obliged if you don’t tell him, either.”

“I’m not likely to, am I? And anyway, I don’t quite see why the promises about this letter should all be on my side.”

“It may be important.”

“All right, but I can’t think how. You’ve got it. Are you going to use it in some way?”

“Not if it’s irrelevant.”

“I suppose it’s no good asking you to give it back to me. No, I can see it’s not.”

“It isn’t, really, Désirée,” Alleyn said, using her name for the first time. “Not till I make quite sure it’s of no account. I’m sorry.”

“What a common sort of job you’ve got. I can’t think how you do it.” She gave one of her harsh barks of laughter.

He looked at her for a moment. “I expect that was a very clever thing to say,” he said. “But I’m afraid it makes no difference. Good-bye. Thank you again for my lunch.”

When he was in the car he said: “To Ribblethorpe. It’s about five miles, I think. I want to go to the parish church.”

It was a pleasant drive through burgeoning lanes. There were snowdrops in the hedgerows and a general air of freshness and simplicity. Désirée’s final observation stuck in his gullet.

Ribblethorpe was a tiny village. They drove past a row of cottages and a shop-post-office and came to a pleasant if not distinguished church with a big shabby parsonage beyond it.

Alleyn walked through the graveyard and very soon found a Victorian headstone to frances ann patricia, infant daughter of alfred molyneux piers period esquire and lady frances mary julia, his wife. she is not dead but sleepeth. Reflecting on the ambiguity of the quotation, Alleyn moved away and had not long to search before he found carved armorial bearings exactly similar to those in Mr. Period’s study. These adorned the grave of Lord Percival Francis Pykke, who died in 1701 and had conferred sundry and noble benefits upon this parish. The name recurred pretty regularly up and down the graveyard from Jacobean times onward. When he went into the church it was the same story. Armorial fish, brasses and tablets all confirmed the eminence of innumerable Pykes.

Alleyn was in luck. The baptismal register was not locked away in the vestry but chained to a carved desk, hard by the font. In the chancel a lady wearing an apron and housemaid’s gloves was polishing brasses. Her hat, an elderly toque, had been, for greater ease, lifted up on her head — giving her a faint air of recklessness. He approached her.

“I wonder,” Alleyn said, “if I may look in the baptismal register? I’m doing a bit of extremely amateurish research. I’ll be very careful.”

“Oh, rather!” said the lady, jollily. “Do. My husband’s over at Ribblethorpe-Parva with the Mothers, or he’d help like a shot. I don’t know if I—”

“Thank you so much but it’s really quite a simple job,” Alleyn said hastily. “Just a family thing, you know.”

“We haven’t been here long: only three months, so we’re not up in the antiquities.” The Rector’s wife, as Alleyn supposed she must be, gave a final buffet with her polisher, tossed her head at her work in a jocular manner, bobbed to the altar and made for the vestry. “I’m Mrs. Nicholls,” she said. “My husband followed dear old Father Forsdyke. You’ll find all the entries pretty erratic,” she added over her shoulder. “Father Forsdyke was a saint but as vague as could be. Over ninety when he died, rest his soul.” She disappeared. Somehow, she reminded him of Connie Cartell.

The register was bound in vellum and bore the Royal Arms on its cover. Its pages were divided into columns headed When Baptised, Child’s Christian Name, Parents’ Names, Abode, Quality, Trade or Profession and By Whom Performed . It had been opened at July 1874.

How old was Mr. Pyke Period? Fifty-eight? Over sixty? Difficult to say. Alleyn started his search at the first entry in 1895. In that year the late Mr. Forsdyke was already at the helm and, although presumably not much over thirty, pretty far advanced in absence-of-mind. There was every sort of mistake and erasure, Mr. Forsdyke madly representing himself by turns as “Officiating Priest,” “Infant,” “Godmother,” and in one entry as Abode . These slips were sometimes corrected by himself, sometimes by another person and sometimes not at all. In several places, the sponsors appeared under Quality, Trade or Profession , in others they were crammed in with the parents. In one respect, however, all was consistency. Where a male Pyke was in question the Quality was invariably “Gentleman.”

At the bottom of a particularly wild page in the year 1897, Alleyn found what he wanted. Here on May 7th (altered to 5th) was baptised Frances Ann Patricia, daughter of Alfred Molyneux Piers Period and Lady Frances Mary Julia Period née Pyke, with a huddle of amended sponsors. In another hand, crammed in under Frances Ann Patricia, a second infant had been entered: Percival Pyke. Brackets had been added, enclosing the word “Twins.”

It would seem that, on the occasion of his baptism, Mr. Pyke Period had fallen a victim to the Rector’s peculiarity and had been temporarily neglected for his twin sister who, Alleyn remembered from her headstone, had died in infancy.