Ngaio Marsh - False Scent

“Did you use a great deal of the scent?” he asked.

“Fair amount. She asked me to,” Warrender angrily repeated.

Charles shuddered and Alleyn said, “It’s very strong, isn’t it? Even the empty bottle seems to fill the room if one takes the stopper out.”

“Don’t!” Charles exclaimed. But Alleyn had already removed it. The smell, ponderable, sweet and improper, was disturbingly strong.

“Extraordinary!” Gantry said. “She only wore it for an afternoon and yet — the association.”

“ Will you be quiet, sir!” Warrender shouted. “My God, what sort of a cad do you call yourself? Can’t you see…” He made a jerky, ineloquent gesture.

Alleyn replaced the stopper.

“Did you, do you think,” he asked Warrender, “use so much that the spray could then accommodate what was left in the bottle?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“No,” said Florence.

“And even if it was filled up again, the spray itself now only contains about that same amount. Which means, to insist on the point, that somehow or another three-quarters of the whole amount of scent has disappeared.”

“That’s impossible,” Pinky said bluntly. “Unless it was spilt.”

“No,” Florence said again. Alleyn turned to her.

“And the spray and bottle were on the dressing-table when you found Miss Bellamy?”

“Must of been. I didn’t stop,” Florence said bitterly, “to tidy up the dressing-table.”

“And the tin of Slaypest was on the floor?”

Fox placed the tin beside the other exhibits and they looked at it with horror.

“Yes?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes,” said Warrender, Harkness and Gantry together, and Charles suddenly beat with his hand on the table.

“Yes, yes, yes ,” he said violently. “My God, must we have all this!”

“I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m afraid we must.”

“Look here,” Gantry demanded, “are you suggesting that — what the hell are you suggesting?”

“I suggest nothing,” Alleyn said. “I simply want to try and clear up a rather odd state of affairs. Can anybody offer an explanation?”

“She herself — Mary — must have done something about it. Knocked it over perhaps.”

“Which?” Alleyn asked politely. “The bottle or the spray?”

“I don’t know,” Gantry said irritably. “How should I? The spray, I suppose. And then filled it up.”

“There’s no sign of a spill, as Florence has pointed out.”

“I know!” Bertie Saracen began. “You think it was used as a sort of blind to — to…”

“To what, Mr Saracen?”

“Ah, no,” Bertie said in a hurry. “I — thought — no, I was muddling. I don’t know.”

“I think I do,” Pinky said and turned very white.

“Yes?” Alleyn said.

“I won’t go on. I can’t. It’s not clear enough. Please.”

She looked Alleyn straight in the eyes. “Mr. Alleyn,” Pinky said. “If you prod and insist, you’ll winkle out all sorts of odd bits of information about — about arguments and rows. Inside the theatre and out. Mostly inside. Like a good many other actresses, Mary did throw the odd temperament. She threw one,” Pinky went on against an almost palpable surge of consternation among her listeners, “for a matter of that, this morning.”

“ Pinky !” Gantry warned her on a rising note.

“Timmy, why not? I daresay Mr. Alleyn already knows,” she said wearily.

“How very wise you are,” Alleyn exclaimed. “Thank you for it. Yes, we do know, in a piecemeal sort of way, as you’ve suggested, that there were ructions. We have winkled them out. We know, for instance, that there was a difference of opinion, on professional grounds, here in this room. This morning. We know it was resurrected with other controversial matters during the party. We know that you and Mr. Saracen were involved and when I say that, I’m quite sure you’re both much too sensible to suppose I’m suggesting anything more. Fox and I speak only of facts. We’ll be nothing but grateful if you can help us discard as many as possible of the awkward load of facts that we’ve managed to accumulate.”

“All this,” Gantry said, “sounds mighty fine. We’re on foreign ground, Pinky, and may well make fools of ourselves. You watch your step, my girl.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, and still looking full at Alleyn, “What do you want to know?”

“First of all, what your particular row was about.”

She said, “All right with you, Bertie?”

“Oh Christmas!” he said. “I suppose so.”

“You’re a fool, Bertie,” Timon Gantry said angrily. “These things can’t be controlled. You don’t know where you’ll fetch up.”

“But then you see, Timmy dear, I never do,” Bertie rejoined with a sad little giggle.

Gantry rounded on Pinky Cavendish. “You might care to remember that other people are involved.”

“I don’t forget, Timmy, I promise you.” She turned to Alleyn. “This morning’s row,” she said, “was because I told Mary I was going to play the lead in a new play. She felt I was deserting her. Later on, during the party when we were all”—she indicated the conservatory—“in there, she brought it up again.”

“And was still very angry?”

Pinky looked unhappily at Charles. “It was pretty hot while it lasted. Those sorts of dusts-up always were, with Mary.”

“And you were involved, Mr. Saracen?”

“Not ’alf!” Bertie said and explained why.

“And you, Mr. Gantry?”

“Very well — yes. In so far as I am to produce the comedy.”

“But you copped it both ways, Timmy,” Bertie pointed out with some relish. “You were involved in the other one, too. About Dicky’s ‘different’ play and Anelida being asked to do the lead. She was angrier about that than anything. She was livid.”

“Mr. Alleyn knows,” Anelida said and they looked uneasily at her.

“Never mind, dear,” Gantry said rather bossily. “None of this need concern you. Don’t get involved.”

“She is involved,” Richard said, looking at her. “With me. Permanently, I hope.”

“ Really ?” Pinky cried out in her warmest voice and beamed at Anelida. “How lovely! Bertie! Timmy! Isn’t that lovely! Dicky, darling ! Anelida!”

They made enthusiastic noises. It was impossible, Anelida found, not to be moved by their friendliness, but it struck her as quite extraordinary that they could switch so readily to this congratulatory vein. She caught a look of-what? Surprise? Resignation? in Alleyn’s eye and was astounded when he gave her the faintest shadow of a wink.

“Delightful though it is to refresh ourselves with this news,” he said, “I’m afraid I must bring you back to the matter in hand. How did the row in the conservatory arise?”

Pinky and Bertie gave him a look in which astonishment mingled with reproach.

Richard said quickly, “Mary came into the conservatory while we were discussing the casting of my play, Husbandry in Heaven . I should have told her — warned her. I didn’t and she felt I hadn’t been frank about it.”

“I’m sorry, but I shall have to ask you exactly what she said.”

He saw at once that Pinky, Saracen and Gantry were going to refuse. They looked quickly at one another and Gantry said rather off-handedly, “I imagine none of us remembers in any detail. When Mary threw a temperament she said all sorts of things that everybody knew she didn’t mean.”

“Did she, for instance, make threats of any sort?”

Gantry stood up. “For the last time,” he said, “I warn you all that you’re asking for every sort of trouble if you let yourselves be led into making ill-considered statements about matters that are entirely beside the point. For the last time I suggest that you consider your obligations to your profession and your careers. Keep your tongues behind your teeth or, by God, you’ll regret it.”