Ngaio Marsh - False Scent

“According to Anelida Lee this row was revived in the conservatory,” Alleyn muttered. “What were they doing here this morning?”

“Mr. Saracen had come to do the flowers, about which Gracefield spoke very sarcastically, and Miss Cavendish had brought the deceased that bottle of scent.”

“What!” Alleyn said. “Not the muck on her dressing-table? Not Formidable? This morning ?”

“That’s right.”

Alleyn slapped his hand down on Richard’s desk and got up. “My God, what an ass I’ve been!” he said and then, sharply, “Who opened it?”

“She did. In the dining-room.”

“And used it? Then?”

“Had a bit of a dab, Gracefield said. He happened to be glancing through the serving-hatch at the time.”

“What became of it after that?”

“Florence took charge of it. I’m afraid,” Fox said, “I’m not with you, Mr. Alleyn, in respect of the scent.”

“My dear old boy, think! Think of the bottle.”

“Very big,” Fox said judiciously.

“Exactly. Very big. Well then…?”

“Yes. Ah, yes,” Fox said slowly and then, “Well, I’ll be staggered!”

“And so you jolly well should. This could blow the whole damn case wide open again.”

“Will I fetch them?”

“Do. And call on Florence, wherever she is. Get the whole story, Fox. Tactfully, as usual. Find out when the scent was decanted into the spray and when she used it. Watch the reactions, won’t you? And see if there’s anything in the Plumtree stories: about Richard Dakers’s parentage and Florence being threatened with the sack.”

Fox looked at his watch. “Ten o’clock,” he said. “She may have gone to bed.”

“That’ll be a treat for you. Leave me your notes. Away you go.”

While Fox was on this errand, Alleyn made a plot, according to information, of the whereabouts of Charles Templeton, the four guests, the servants and Richard Dakers up to the time when he himself arrived on the scene. Fox’s spadework had been exhaustive, as usual, and a pretty complicated pattern emerged. Alleyn lifted an eyebrow over the result. How many of them had told the whole truth? Which of them had told a cardinal lie? He put a query against one name and was shaking his head over it when Fox returned.

“Bailey’s finished with them,” Fox said and placed on Richard’s desk the scent-spray, the empty Formidable bottle and the tin of Slay pest.

“What’d he find in the way of dabs?”

“Plenty. All sorts, but none that you wouldn’t expect. He’s identified the deceased’s. Florence says she and Mr. Templeton and Colonel Warrender all handled the exhibit during the day. She says the deceased got the Colonel to operate the spray on her, just before the party. Florence filled it from the bottle.”

“And how much was left in the bottle?”

“She thinks it was about a quarter-full. She was in bed,” Fox added in a melancholy tone.

“That would tally,” Alleyn muttered. “No sign of the bottle being knocked over and spilling, is there?”

“None.”

Alleyn began to tap the Slaypest tin with his pencil. “About half-full. Anyone know when it was first used?”

“Florence reckons, a week ago. Mr. Templeton didn’t like her using it and tried to get Florence to make away with it.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“No chance according to her. She went into a great taking-on and asked me if I was accusing her of murder.”

“ Did she get the sack, this morning?”

“When I asked her she went up like a rocket bomb, the story being that Mrs. Plumtree has taken against her and let out something that was told in confidence.”

Alleyn put his head in his hands. “Oh Lord !” he said.

“You meet that kind of thing,” Mr. Fox observed, “in middle-age ladies. Florence says that when Miss Bellamy or Mr. Templeton was out of humour, she would make out she was going to sack Florence, but there was nothing in it. She says she only told Mrs. Plumtree as a joke. I kind of nudged in a remark about Mr. Dakers’s parentage, but she wasn’t having any of that. She turned around and accused me of having a dirty mind and in the next breath had another go at Mrs. Plumtree. All the same,” Mr. Fox added primly, “I reckon there’s something in it. I reckon so from her manner. She appears to be very jealous of anybody who was near the deceased and that takes in Mr. Templeton, Mr. Dakers, Mrs. Plumtree and the Colonel.”

“Good old Florrie,” Alleyn said absent-mindedly.

“You know, sir,” Fox continued heavily, “I’ve been thinking about the order of events. Take the latter part of the afternoon. Say, from when the Colonel used the scent. What happened after that , now?”

“According to himself he went downstairs and had a quick one with Mrs. Templeton in the presence of the servants while Templeton and Dakers were closetcd in the study. All this up to the time when the first guests began to come in. It looks good enough, but it’s not cast iron.”

“Whereas,” Fox continued, “Florence and Mrs. Plumtree went upstairs. Either of them could have gone into Mrs. Templeton’s room, and got up to the odd bit of hanky-panky, couldn’t they, now?”

“The story is that they were together in their parlour until they went downstairs to the party. They’re at daggers-drawn. Do you think that if one of them had popped out of the parlour the other would feel disposed to keep mum about it?”

“Ah. There is that, of course. But it might have been forgotten.”

“Come off it, Foxkin.”

“The same goes for Mr. Templeton and Mr. Dakers. They’ve said, independently of each other, that they were together in the study. I don’t know how you feel about that one, Mr. Alleyn, but I’m inclined to accept it.”

“So am I. Entirely.”

“If we do accept all this, we’ve got to take it that the job was fixed after the guests began to arrive. Now, up to the row in the conservatory the three gentlemen were all in the reception rooms. The Colonel was in attendance on the deceased. Mr. Templeton was also with her receiving the guests and Mr. Dakers was on the lookout for his young lady.”

“What’s more, there was a press photographer near the foot of the stairs, a cinematographer half-way up, and a subsidiary bar at the foot of the backstairs with a caterer’s man on duty throughout. He saw Florence and Ninn and nobody else go up. What’s that leave us in the way of a roaring-hot suspect?”

“It means,” Fox said, “either that one of those two women fixed it then…”

“But when? You mean before they met on the landing and tried to listen in on the famous scene?”

“I suppose I do. Yes. While the photograph was being taken.”

“Yes?”

“Alternatively someone else went up before that.”

“Again, when? It would have to be after the cinema unit moved away and before Mrs. Templeton left the conservatory and came out into the hall where she was photographed with Dakers glowering in the background. And it would have to be before she took him upstairs.”

“Which restricts you to the entrance with the birthday cake and the speeches. I reckon someone could have slipped upstairs then.”

“The general attention being focused on the speakers and the stairs being clear? Yes. I agree with you. So far. But, see here, Fox; this expert didn’t do the trick as simply as that, I’m inclined to think there was one more visit at least, more likely that there were two more, one before and one after the death. Tidying up, you know. If I’m right, there was a certain amount of tidying up.”

“My God,” Fox began with unwonted heat, “what are you getting at, Mr. Alleyn? It’s tough enough as it is, d’you want to make it more difficult? What’s the idea?”