Ngaio Marsh - False Scent

“I think,” Alleyn said, “that we will make this “a round-the-table discussion.” He sat in the vacant chair at the end of the table. “It gives one,” he explained with a smile at Pinky Cavendish, “a spurious air of importance. We shall need five more chairs, Philpott.’”

P.C. Philpott placed them. Nobody spoke.

Fox came in from the hall bringing Florence and Old Ninn in his wake. Old Ninn was attired in a red flannel gown. Florence had evidently redressed herself rather sketchily and covered the deficiencies with an alpaca overall. Her hair was trapped in a tortuous system of tin curlers.

“Please sit down,” Alleyn said. “I’m sorry about dragging you in again. It won’t, I hope, be for long.”

Florence and Ninn, both looking angry and extremely reluctant and each cutting the other dead, sat on opposite sides of the table, leaving empty chairs between themselves and their nearest neighbours.

“Where’s Dr. Harkness, Fox?”

“Back in the conservatory, I believe, sir. We thought it better not to rouse him.”

“I’m afraid we must do so now.”

Curtains had been drawn across the conservatory wall. Fox disappeared behind them. Stertorous, unlovely and protesting noises were heard and presently he re-appeared with Dr. Harkness, now bloated with sleep and very tousled.

“Oh torment!” he said in a thick voice. “Oh hideous condition!”

“Would you,” Alleyn asked, “be very kind and see if you think Mr. Templeton is up to joining us? If there’s any doubt about it, we won’t disturb him. He’s in the study:”

“Very well,” said Dr. Harkness, trying to flatten his hair with both hands. “Never, never, never, any of you, chase up four whiskies with three glasses of champagne. Don’t do it!” he added furiously as if somebody had shown signs of taking this action. He went out.

“We’ll wait,” Alleyn said composedly, “for Mr. Templeton,” and arranged his papers.

Warrender cleared his throat. “Don’t like the look of that sawbones,” he said.

“Poor pet,” Bertie sighed. “And yet I almost wish I were in his boots. A pitiable but not unenviable condition.”

“Bad show!” Warrender said. “Fellar’s on duty.”

“Are you true?” Gantry asked suddenly, gazing at Warrender with a kind of devotion.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Gantry clasped his hands and said ecstatically, “One would never dare! Never! And yet people say one’s productions tend towards caricature! You shall give them the lie in their teeth, Colonel. In your own person you shall refute them.”

“I’m damned if I know what you’re talking about, Gantry, but if you’re trying to be abusive.…”

“ ‘No abuse,’ ” Alleyn quoted unexpectedly. He was reading his notes. “ ‘No abuse in the world: no, faith, boys, none’.”

They stared at him. Gantry, thrown off his stride, looked round the table as if calling attention to Alleyn’s eccentricity. Bertie leant towards him. “Formidable!” he murmured, indicating Alleyn.

“ What !” Pinky ejaculated. “ What did you say, dear?”

“Formidable!” Bertie repeated. “I said’formidable.’ Why? Oh God! Sorry!”

Warrender made some sort of exclamation.

“I was talking about Mr. Alleyn, dear,” Bertie explained. “I said he was formidable.”

“Oh!” Pinky said. “That! Sorry!”

“A misunderstanding,” Alleyn remarked to his notes. “But don’t let it put you off the scent. We’re coming to that in a minute.”

Pinky, greatly disconcerted, had opened her mouth to reply but was prevented by the appearance of Charles Templeton. He had come in with Dr. Harkness. He was a bad colour, seemed somehow to have shrunk and walked like the old man he actually was. But his manner was contained and he smiled faintly at them.

Alleyn got up and went to him. “He’s all right,” Dr. Harkness said. “He’ll do. Won’t you, Charles?”

“I’ll do,” Charles repeated. “Much better.”

“Would you rather sit in a more comfortable chair?’ Alleyn suggested. “As you see, we are making free with your dining-room table.”

“Of course. I hope you’ve got everything you want. I’ll join you.”

He took the nearest chair. Richard had got up and now, gripping Charles’s shoulders, leant over him. Charles turned his head and looked up at him. During that moment, Alleyn thought, he saw a resemblance.

Richard said, “Are you well enough for all this?”

“Yes, yes. Perfectly.”

Richard returned to his place, Dr. Harkness and Fox took the two remaining seats, and the table was full.

Alleyn clasped his hands over his papers, said, “Well, now,” and wishing, not for the first time, that he could find some other introductory formula, addressed himself to his uneasy audience.

Anelida thought, “Here we all sit like a committee meeting and the chairman thinks one of us is a murderer.” Richard, very straight in his chair, looked at the table. When she stirred a little he reached for her hand, gripped it and let it go.

Alleyn was talking.

“… I would like to emphasize that until the pathologist’s report comes in, there can be no certainty, but in the meantime I think we must try to arrive at a complete pattern of events. There are a number of points still to be settled and to that end I have kept you so long and asked you to come here. Fox?”

Fox had brought a small case with him. He now opened it, produced the empty scent bottle and laid it on the table.

“Formidable,” Alleyn said and turned to Pinky. “Your birthday present, wasn’t it, and the cause, I think, of your misunderstanding just now with Mr. Saracen.”

Pinky said angrily, “What have you done with the scent? Sorry,” she added. “It doesn’t matter, of course. It’s only that — well, it was full this morning.”

“When you gave it to Miss Bellamy? In this room?”

“That’s right.”

Alleyn turned to Florence. “Can you help us?”

“I filled her spray from it,” Florence said mulishly.

“That wouldn’t account for the lot, Florry,” Pinky pointed out.

“Was the spray empty?” Alleyn asked.

“Just about. She didn’t mind mixing them.”

“And how much was left in the bottle?” ”

“ He asked me all this,” Florence said, jerking her head at Fox.

“And now I do.”

“About that much,” she muttered, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

“About a quarter. And the spray was full?”

She nodded.

Fox, with the expertise of a conjuror, produced the scent-spray and placed it by the bottle.

“And only about ‘that much,’ ” Alleyn pointed out, “is now in the spray. So we’ve got pretty well three-quarters of this large bottle of scent to account for, haven’t we?”

“I fail utterly,” Warrender began, “to see what you think you’re driving at.”

“Perhaps you can help. I understand, sir, that you actually used this thing earlier in the day.”

“Not on myself, God damn it!” Warrender said and then shot an uneasy glance at Charles Templeton.

Gantry gave a snort of delight.

“On Miss Bellamy?” Alleyn suggested.

“Naturally.”

“And did you happen to notice how much was left?”

“It was over three-quarters full. What!” Warrender demanded, appealing to Charles.

“I didn’t notice,” he said, and put his hand over his eyes.

“Do you mind telling me, sir, how you came to do this?”

“Not a bit. Why should I?” Warrender rejoined, and with every appearance of exquisite discomfort added, “She asked me to. Didn’t she, Charles?”

He nodded.

Alleyn pressed for more detail and got an awkward account of the scene with a grudging confirmation from Florence and a leaden one from Charles.