Ngaio Marsh - Hand in Glove

Fox said: “Better use the other phone.” He replaced the receiver very gingerly and went into the hall.

Mr. Period was not dead. When Alleyn bent over him, he could hear his breathing — a faint snoring sound. The pulse was barely perceptible.

Fox came back. “On his way,” he said. “Will I search outside?”

“Right. We’d better not move him. I’ll do the house.”

It was perfectly quiet and empty of living persons. Alleyn went from room to room, opening and shutting doors, receiving the indefinable smells of long-inhabited places, listening, looking and finding nothing. Mrs. Mitchell’s room smelt stuffily of hairpins and Alfred Belt’s of boot polish. Mr. Period’s bedroom smelt of hair lotion and floor polish, and Mr. Cartell’s of blankets and soap. Nothing was out of place anywhere in Mr. Period’s house. Alleyn returned to the library as Fox came in.

“Nothing,” Fox said. “Nobody, anywhere.”

“There’s the instrument,” Alleyn said.

It was the bronze paperweight in the form of a fish that Désirée had given Mr. Period. It lay on the carpet close to his dangling hand.

“I’ll get our chaps,” Fox said. “They’re in the pub. Here’s the doctor.”

Dr. Elkington came in looking as if his professional manner had been fully extended.

“What now, for God’s sake?” he said and went straight to his patient. Alleyn watched him make his examination, which did not take long.

“All right,” he said. “On the face of it he’s severely concussed. I don’t think there’s any extensive cranial injury but we’ll have to wait. Half an inch either way and it’d have been a different matter. We’d better get him out of this. Where’s that man of his — Alfred?”

“At a Church Social,” said Alleyn. “We could get a mattress. Or what about the sofa in the drawing-room?”

“All right. Better than manhandling him all over the shop.”

Fox and Alleyn carried Mr. Period into the drawing-room and propped him up on the sofa, Dr. Elkington supporting his head.

“Will he speak?” Alleyn asked Dr. Elkington.

“Might or might not. Your guess is as good as mine. There’s nothing we can do at the moment. He may have to go to hospital. I’d better get a nurse. What’s the story, if there is a story?”

“Somebody chucked a bronze paperweight at him. You’d better look at it. Don’t touch it unless you have to. Fox will show you. I’m staying here. I’ll let you know if there’s a change.”

“Attempted murder?” Dr. Elkington said, making a mouthful of it.

“I think so.”

“For God’s sake!” Dr. Elkington repeated. He and Fox went out of the room. Alleyn drew up a chair and watched Mr. Period.

His eyes were not quite closed and his breathing, though still markedly stertorous, seemed to be more regular. Alleyn heard Dr. Elkington at the telephone.

The doorbell rang. The other chaps, he thought. Fox would cope.

Mr. Period’s eyes opened and looked, squintingly, at nothing.

“You’re all right,” Alleyn said, leaning towards him.

Dr. Elkington came back. “It’s the paperweight sure enough,” he said. “Trace of blood on the edge.” He went to the sofa and took Mr. Period’s hand in his.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re all right.”

The flaccid lips parted. After an indeterminate noise a whisper drifted through them: “ It was that song .”

“Song? What song?”

“He’s deeply concussed, Alleyn.”

“What song?”

“ Should have told Alleyn. Whistling. Such awfully bad form. Luncheon .”

“What song?”

“ Couldn’t — out of my head .” Mr. Period whispered plaintively. “ So silly. ‘O.K. by me.’ So, of course. Recognized. At once .” The sound faded and for a moment or two the lips remained parted. Then Mr. Period’s own voice, uncannily articulate, said quite clearly: “May I speak to Superintendent Alleyn?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, holding up a warning hand. “Alleyn speaking.”

“Just to tell you. Whistling. Recognized it. Last night. In the lane. Very wrong of me not to — Divided loyalties.” There was a longish silence. Alleyn and Elkington stared absently at each other. “ O.K. by me ,” the voice sighed. “ So vulgar .”

The eyes closed again.

“This may go on for hours, Alleyn.”

“How much will he remember when he comes round?”

“Everything probably, up to the moment he was knocked out. Unless there’s a serious injury to the brain.” Dr. Elkington was stooping over his patient. “Still bleeding a bit. I’ll have to put in a couple of stitches. Where’s my bag?” He went out. Fox was talking to the men in the hall. “We’ll seal the library and cover the area outside the window.”

“Do we search?” asked somebody. Williams, Alleyn decided.

“Better talk to the Chief.”

Fox and Williams came in with Dr. Elkington, who opened his professional bag.

“Just steady his head, will you?” he asked Alleyn.

Holding Mr. Period’s head between his hands, Alleyn said to Fox and Williams: “It looks as if the thing was thrown at him by somebody standing between the table and the French windows while he was ringing me up. I heard the receiver knock against the desk as it fell and I heard a click that might well have been made by the windows being pulled to. You’re not likely to find anything on the drive. It’s as dry as a bone and in any case the French doors are probably used continually. Whoever made the attack had time enough to effect a clean getaway before we came trundling in, but I think the best line we can take is to keep watch in case he’s still hiding in the garden — Noakes and Thompson can do that — and Fox, you rouse up Miss Cartell’s household. Somebody will have to stay here in case he speaks again. Bob, would you do that?”

“Right,” said Superintendent Williams.

“I’ve got a call to London.”

“To London?” Williams repeated.

“It may give us a line. Fox, I’ll join you at Miss Cartell’s. O.K?”

“O.K., Mr. Alleyn.”

“And Bailey had better have a go at the paperweight. I think it was probably on the table near the French windows. There are various piles of stacked papers, all but one weighed down. And one of the ashtrays has got two lipsticked butts in it. Miss Ralston and Leiss smoke Mainsails, Lady Bantling smokes Cafards and Mr. Period, Turkish. Ask him to look. Gloves!” Alleyn ejaculated. “If we could find those damn’ gloves. Not that they are likely to have anything to do with this party, but we’ve a glove-conscious homicide on our hands, I fancy. All right.…Let’s get cracking.”

It was at this juncture — at a quarter to midnight — that he talked on the telephone to Nicola Maitland-Mayne.

Then he rejoined Elkington in the drawing-room.

“Has he said anything else?”

“No.”

“Look here, Elkington, can you stick it here with Williams for a bit? We’re fully extended, we can’t risk the chance of missing anything he may say, and Williams will be glad of a witness. Somebody will relieve you as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Write it down, Bob, if he does speak. I’m much obliged to you both.”

He was about to go when a sound, fainter than anything they had yet heard, came from the sofa. It wavered tenuously for a second or two and petered out. Mr. Period, from whatever region he at present inhabited, had been singing.

As Alleyn was about to leave the house, Detective Sergeant Bailey presented himself.

“There’s a small thing,” he said.

“What small thing?”

“There’s nothing for us on the gravel outside the French windows, Mr. Alleyn, but I reckon there’s something on the carpet.”