Ngaio Marsh - False Scent

“If it’s any good it’s going to make it easier. Much easier.”

Alleyn stood up.

“You know, Br’er Fox,” he said, “I can see only one explanation that really fits. Take a look at what’s offering. Suicide? Leave her party, go up to her bedroom and spray herself to death? They all scout the notion and so do I. Accident? We’ve had it: the objection being the inappropriateness of the moment for her to horticult and the nature of the stains. Homicide? All right. What’s the jury asked to believe? That she stood stock-still while her murderer pumped a deluge of Slaypest into her face at long and then at short range? Defending counsel can’t keep a straight face over that one. But if, by any giddy chance, I’m on the right track, there’s an answer that still admits homicide. Now, listen, while I check over and see if you can spot a weakness.”

Mr. Fox listened placidly to a succinct argument, his gaze resting thoughtfully the while on the tin, the bottle, and the scent-spray.

“Yes,” he said when Alleyn had finished. “Yes. It adds up, Mr. Alleyn. It fits. The only catch that I can see rests in the little difficulty of our having next-to-nothing to substantiate the theory.”

Alleyn pointed a long finger at the exhibits. “We’ve got those,” he said, “and it’ll go damn hard if we don’t rake up something else in the next half hour.”

“Motive?”

“Motive unknown. It may declare itself. Opportunity’s our bird, Fox. Opportunity, my boy.”

“What’s the next step?”

“I rather fancy shock tactics. They’re all cooped up in the dining-room, aren’t they?”

“All except Mr. Templeton. He’s still in the study. When I looked in they were having supper. He’d ordered it for them. Cold partridge,” Mr. Fox said rather wistfully. “A bit of a waste, really, as they didn’t seem to have much appetite.”

“We’ll see if we can stimulate it,” Alleyn said grimly, “with these,” and waved his hand at the three exhibits.

Pinky Cavendish pushed her plate away and addressed herself firmly to her companions.

“I feel,” she said, “completely unreal. It’s not an agreeable sensation.” She looked round the table. “Is there any reason why we don’t say what’s in all our minds? Here we sit, pretending to eat: every man-jack of us pea-green with worry but cutting the whole thing dead. I can’t do with it. Not for another second. I’m a loquacious woman and I want to talk.”

“Pinky,” Timon Gantry said. “Your sense of timing! Never quite successfully co-ordinated, dear, is it?”

“But, actually ,” Bertie Saracen plaintively objected, “I do so feel Pinky’s dead right. I mean we are all devastated and for my part, at least, terrified; but there’s no real future, is there, in maintaining a charnel-house decorum? It can’t improve anything, or can it? And it’s so excessively wearing. Dicky, dear, you won’t misunderstand me, will you? The hearts, I promise you, are utterly in their right place which, speaking for myself, is in the boots.”

Richard, who had been talking in an undertone to Anelida, looked up. “Why not talk,” he said, “if you can raise something that remotely resembles normal conversation.”

Warrender darted a glance at him. “Of course,” he said. “Entirely agree.” But Richard wouldn’t look at Warrender.

“Even abnormal conversation,” Pinky said, “would be preferable to strangulated silence.”

Bertie, with an air of relief, said, “Well then, everybody, let’s face it. We’re not being herded together in a”—he swallowed—“in a communual cell just out of constabular whimsy. Now are we?”

“No, Bertie,” Pinky said, “we are not.”

“Under hawklike supervision,” Bertie added, “if Sergeant Philpott doesn’t mind my mentioning it.”

P.C. Philpott, from his post at the far end of the room, said, “Not at all, sir,” and surreptitiously groped for his notebook.

“ Thank you,” Bertie said warmly. Gracefield and a maid came in and cleared the table in a deathly silence. When they had gone Bertie broke out again. “My God,” he said. “Isn’t it as clear as daylight that every one of us, except Anelida, is under suspicion for something none of us likes to mention?”

“I do,” Pinky said. “I’m all for mentioning it, and indeed if I don’t mention it I believe I’ll go off like a geyser.”

“No, you won’t, dear,” Gantry firmly intervened. He was sitting next to Pinky and looked down upon her with a cranelike tilt of his head. “You’ll behave beautifully and not start any free-associating nonsense. This is not the time for it.”

“Timmy darling, I’m sorry as sorry but I’m moved to defy you,” Pinky announced with a great show of spirit. “In the theatre — never. Outside it and under threat of being accused of murder — yes. There!” she ejaculated. “I’ve said it! Murder. And aren’t you all relieved?”

Bertie Saracen said at once, “Bless you, darling. Immeasurably.”

Timon Gantry and Colonel Warrender simultaneously looked at the back of Philpott’s head and then exchanged glances: two men, Anelida felt, of authority at the mercy of an uncontrollable situation.

“Very well, then,” Pinky continued. “The police think Mary was murdered and presumably they think one of us murdered her. It sounds monstrous, but it appears to be true. The point is does anyone here agree with them?”

“I don’t,” Bertie said. He glanced at the serving-hatch and lowered his voice. “After all,” he said uncomfortably, “we’re not the only ones.”

“If you mean the servants…” Richard said angrily.

“I don’t mean anybody in particular,” Bertie protested in a great hurry.

“—It’s quite unthinkable.”

“To my mind,” Pinky said, “the whole thing’s out of this world. I don’t and can’t and won’t believe it of anybody in the house.”

“Heah, heah,” Warrender ejaculated, lending a preposterously hearty note to the conversation. “Ridiculous idea,” he continued loudly. “Alleyn’s behaving altogether too damn high-handedly.” He looked at Richard, hesitated and with an obvious effort said, “Don’t you agree?”

Without turning his head, Richard said, “He knows his own business, I imagine.” ”

There was a rather deadly little silence broken by Timon Gantry.

“For my part,” Gantry said, “I feel the whole handling of the situation is so atrociously hard on Charles Templeton.”

A guilty look came into their faces, Anelida noticed, as if they were ashamed of forgetting Charles. They made sympathetic noises and were embarrassed.

“What I resent,” Pinky said suddenly, “is being left in the dark. What happened? Why the mystery? Why not accident? All we’ve been told is that poor Mary died of a dose of pest-killer. It’s hideous and tragic and we’re all shocked beyond words, but if we’re being kept here under suspicion”—she brought her clenched fist down on the table—“ we’ve a right to know why !”

She had raised her not inconsiderable voice to full projection point. None of them had heard the door from the hall open.

“Every right,” Alleyn said, coming forward. “And I’m sorry that the explanation has been so long delayed.”

The men had half-risen, but he lifted his hand and they sat back again. Anelida, for all her anxiety, had time to reflect that he was possessed of an effortless authority before which even Gantry, famous for this quality, became merely one of a controllable group. The attentive silence that descended upon them was of exactly the same kind as that which Gantry himself commanded at rehearsals. Even Colonel Warrender, though he raised his eyebrows, folded his arms and looked uncommonly portentous, found nothing to say.