Ngaio Marsh - Hand in Glove

After that Andrew was able to talk to her and did so with such evident delight that Nicola actually detected in herself a twinge of something that astonished her and gave an edge to her extreme happiness.

It was not until much later, when Troy had produced lager, and they were telling her about the Grantham Gallery project, that Nicola remembered Mr. Period.

“I think,” she told Troy, “you’re going to be approached by my new boss. He’s writing a book on etiquette and his publishers want a drawing of him. He’s rather shy about asking because you turned down one of his lordly chums. You know him, don’t you? Mr. Pyke Period?”

“Yes, of course I do. He crops up at all the Private Views that he thinks are smart occasions. I’ll be blowed if I’ll draw him.”

“I was afraid that might be your reaction.”

“Well,” Troy said, “there’s no denying he really is a complete old phony. Do you know he once commissioned a pupil of mine to do a painting from some print he’d picked up, of a Georgian guardee making faces at a thunderstorm. He said it was one of his ancestors, and so it may have been, but after a lot of beating about the bush he made it quite clear that he wanted this job faked to look like an eighteenth-century portrait. My pupil was practically on the breadline at the time and I’m afraid the thing was done.”

“Oh, dear!” Nicola sighed. “I know. It’s there, in the library, I think. He’s like that, but he’s rather an old sweetie-pie, all the same. Isn’t he, Andrew?”

“Nicola,” said Andrew, “I daresay he is. But he’s a terrible old donkey. And yet — I don’t know. Is P.P. just plain silly? I doubt it. I rather think there’s an element of low cunning.”

“Childish, not low,” Nicola insisted, but Andrew was looking at her with such a degree of affectionate attention that she was extremely flustered.

“Well,” Andrew said. “Never mind, anyway, about P.P.”

“I can’t help it. He was so miserable all the afternoon. You know: trying to forge ahead with his tips on U-necessities, as he inevitably calls them, and then falling into wretched little trances. He really was in a bad state. Everything seemed to upset him.”

“What sorts of things?” Troy asked. “Have some more lager?”

“No, thank you. Well, he kept singing in an extremely dismal manner. And then he would stop and turn sheet-white. He muttered something about ‘No, no, I mustn’t — better forget it,’ and looked absolutely terrified.”

“How very odd,” Andrew said. “What was his song?”

“I don’t remember — yes, I do!” Nicola exclaimed. “Of course I do! Because he’d done the same sort of thing yesterday, after lunch: hummed it and then been cross with himself. But it was different today. He seemed quite shattered.”

“And the song?”

“It was the pop-song that ghastly Leonard kept whistling through his teeth at luncheon. He even sang a bit of it when they were looking at the cigarette case: If you mean what I think you mean, O.K. by me. Things aren’t always what they seem. O.K. by me.”

“Not exactly a ‘Period piece.’ ”

“It was all very rum.”

“Did you happen to mention it to Rory?” Troy asked.

“No. I haven’t seen him since it happened. And anyway, why should I?”

“No reason at all, I daresay.”

“Look,” Nicola said quickly, “however foolish he may be, Mr. Period is quite incapable of the smallest degree of hanky-panky—” She stopped short and the now familiar jolt of indefinable panic revisited her. “Serious hanky-panky, I mean,” she amended.

“Good Lord, no!” Andrew said. “Of course he is. Incapable, I mean.”

Nicola stood up. “It’s a quarter to twelve,” she said. “We must go, Andrew. Poor Troy!”

The telephone rang and Troy answered it. The voice at the other end said quite distinctly: “Darling?”

“Hullo,” Troy said. “Still at it?”

“Very much so. Is Nicola with you?”

“Yes,” Troy said. “She and Andrew Bantling.”

“Could I have a word with her?”

“Here you are.”

Troy held out the receiver and Nicola took it feeling her heart thud stupidly against her ribs.

“Hullo, Cid,” she said.

“Hullo, Nicola. There’s something that’s cropped up here that you might just possibly be able to give me a line about. After I left you today, did you discuss our conversation with anybody?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “With Andrew.”

“Anyone else? Now don’t go jumping to conclusions, there’s a good child, but did Mr. Period want to know if you told me anything about his luncheon party?”

Nicola swallowed. “Yes, he did. But it was only, poor lamb, because he hates the idea of your hearing about the digs Mr. Cartell made at his snob-values. He was terribly keen to know if I’d told you anything about the baptismal register story.”

“And you said you had told me?”

“Well, I had to, when he asked me point-blank. I made as little of it as I could.”

“Yes. I see. One other thing — and it’s important, Nicola. Do you, by any chance, know anything that would connect Mr. Period with a popular song?”

“A song! No — not—”

“Something about O.K. by me ?”

It had been five past eleven when Alleyn was summoned to the telephone. He and Fox, having struck a blank in respect to the gloves, had been mulling over their notes in the Codling pub when the landlord, avid with curiosity, summoned him.

“It’s a call for you, sir,” he said. “Local. I didn’t catch the name. There’s no one in the bar parlour, if that suits you.”

Alleyn took the call in the bar parlour.

He said: “Alleyn here. Hullo?”

Mr. Pyke Period, unmistakable and agitated, answered. “Alleyn? Thank God! I’m so sorry to disturb you at this unconscionable hour. Do forgive me. The thing is there’s something I feel I ought to tell—”

The voice stopped. Alleyn heard a bump, followed by a soft, heavier noise and then by silence. He waited for a moment or two. There was a faint definite click and, again, silence. He rang and got the “engaged” signal. He hung up and turned to find Fox at his side.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

When they were clear of the pub he broke into a run, with Fox, heavy and capable, on his heels.

“Period,” Alleyn said. “And it looks damn’ fishy. Stopped dead in full cry. Characteristic noises.”

The pub was in a side street that led into the Green at Mr. Period’s end of it. There was nobody about and their footsteps sounded loud on the paving-stones. Connie Cartell’s Pekingese was yapping somewhere on the far side of the Green. Distantly, from the parish schoolroom, came the sound of communal singing.

Only one room in Mr. Period’s house was lit and that was the library. Stepping as quietly as the gravelled drive would permit, they moved towards the French windows. Bay trees stood on either side of the glass doors, which were almost but not quite shut.

Alleyn looked across the table Nicola had used, past her shrouded typewriter and stacked papers. Beyond, to his right, and against the window in the side wall, was Mr. Period’s desk. His shaded lamp, as if it had been switched on by a stage manager, cast down a pool of light on that restricted area, giving it an immense theatricality. The telephone receiver dangled from the desk and Mr. Period’s right arm hung beside it. His body was tipped forward in his chair and his face lay among his papers. The hair was ruffled like a baby’s and from his temple a ribbon of blood had run down the cheekbone to the nostril.

“Doctor”—Alleyn said—“What’s-his-name — Elkington.”