Ngaio Marsh - False Scent

In Charles Templeton’s study, incongruously friendly and comfortable, Warrender and Richard Dakers faced Alleyn, still not looking at each other.

Alleyn said, “I’ve asked you in here, without witnesses, to confirm or deny the conclusion I have drawn from the case-history, as far as it goes. Which is not by any means all the way. If I’m wrong, one or both of you can have a shot at knocking me down or hitting me across the face or performing any other of the conventional gestures. But I don’t advise you to try.”

They stared at him apparently in horrified astonishment.

“Well,” he said, “here goes. My idea, such as it is, based on this business of the letter, which, since you seem to accept my pot shot at it, runs like this.”

He smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper. “It’s pieced together, by the way,” he said, “from the impression left on the blotting-paper.” He looked at Richard. “The original was written, I believe, by you to Mrs. Templeton when you returned, finally, to the house. I’m going to read this transcription aloud. If it’s wrong anywhere, I hope you’ll correct me.”

Warrender said, “There’s no need.”

“Perhaps not. Would you prefer to show me the original?”

With an air of diffidence that sat very ill on him, Warrender appealed to Richard. “Whatever you Say,” he muttered.

Richard said, “Very well! Go on. Go on. Show him.”

Warrender put his hand inside his coat and drew out an envelope. He dropped it on Charles Templeton’s desk, crossed to the fireplace and stood there with his back turned to them.

Alleyn picked up the envelope. The word “Mary” was written on it in green ink. He took out the enclosure and laid his transcription beside it on the desk. As he read it through to himself the room seemed monstrously quiet. The fire settled in the grate. A car or two drove past and the clock in the hall told the half-hour.

“ I’ve come back ,” Alleyn read, “ to say that it would be no use my pretending I haven’t been given a terrible shock and that I can’t get it sorted out, but I’m sure it will be better if we don’t meet. I can’t think clearly now, but at least I know I’ll never forgive your treatment of Anelida this afternoon. I should have been told everything from the beginning. R .”

He folded the two papers and put them aside. “So they do correspond,” he said. “And the handwriting is Mr. Dakers’s.”

Neither Richard nor Warrender moved or spoke’.

“I think,” Alleyn said, “that when you came back for the last time, you went up to your study and wrote this letter with the intention of putting it under her door. When you were about to do so you heard voices in the room, since two of my men were working there. So you came downstairs and were prevented from going out by the constable on duty. It was then that you came into the room where I was interviewing the others. The letter was in your breast pocket. You wanted to get rid of it and you wanted Colonel Warrender to know what was in it. So you passed it to him when you were lying on the sofa in the drawing-room. Do you agree?”

Richard nodded and turned away.

“This evening,” Alleyn went on, “after Mr. Dakers left the Pegasus Bookshop, you, Colonel Warrender, also paid a call on Octavius Browne. Dusk had fallen but you were standing in the window when Octavius came in and seeing you against it he mistook you for his earlier visitor, who he thought must have returned. He was unable to say why he made this mistake, but I think I can account for it. Your heads are very much the same shape. The relative angles and distances from hairline to the top of the nose, from there to the tip and from the tip to the chin are almost identical. Seen in silhouette with the other features obliterated, your profiles must be strikingly alike. In full-face the resemblance disappears. Colonel Warrender has far greater width and a heavier jawline.”

“In these respects,” he said, “Mr. Dakers, I think, takes after his mother.”

“Well,” Alleyn said at last, after a long silence, “I’m glad, at least, that it seems I am not going to be knocked down.”

Warrender said, “I’ve nothing to say. Unless it’s to point out that, as things have come about, I’ve had no opportunity to speak to”—he lifted his head—“to my son.”

Richard said, “I don’t want to discuss it. I should have been told from the beginning.”

“Whereas,” Alleyn said, “you were told, weren’t you, by your mother this afternoon. You went upstairs with her when you returned from the Pegasus and she told you then.”

“ Why !” Warrender cried out. “Why, why, why !”

“She was angry,” Richard said. “With me.” He looked at Alleyn. “You’ve heard or guessed most of it, apparently. She thought I’d conspired against her.”

“Yes?”

“Well — that’s all. That’s how it was.”

Alleyn waited. Richard drove his hands through his hair. “All right!” he cried out. “All right! I’ll tell you. I suppose I’ve got to, haven’t I? She accused me of ingratitude and disloyalty. I said I considered I owed her no more than I had already paid. I wouldn’t have said that if she hadn’t insulted Anelida. Then she came quite close to me and — it was horrible — I could see a nerve jumping under her cheek. She kept repeating that I owed her everything — everything, and that I’d insulted her by going behind her back. Then I said she’d no right to assume a controlling interest in either my friendships or my work. She said she had every right. And then it all came out. Everything. It happened because of our anger. We were both very angry. When she’d told me, she laughed as if she’d scored with the line of climax in a big scene. If she hadn’t done that I might have felt some kind of compassion or remorse or something. I didn’t. I felt cheated and sick and empty. I went downstairs and out into the streets and walked about trying to find an appropriate emotion. There was nothing but a sort of faint disgust.” He moved away and then turned to Alleyn. “But I didn’t murder my”—he caught his breath—“my brand-new mother. I’m not, it appears, that kind of bastard.”

Warrender said, “For God’s sake, Dicky!”

“Just for the record,” Richard said, “ were there two people called Dakers? A young married couple, killed in a car on the Riviera? Australians, I’ve always been given to understand.”

“It’s — it’s a family name. My mother was a Dakers.”

“I see,” Richard said. “I just wondered. It didn’t occur to you to marry her, evidently.” He stopped short and a look of horror crossed his face. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried out. “Forgive me, Maurice, it wasn’t I who said that.”

“My dear chap, of course I wanted to marry her. She wouldn’t have it! She was at the beginning of her career. What could I give her? A serving ensign on a very limited allowance. She — naturally — she wasn’t prepared to throw up her career and follow the drum.”

“And — Charles?”

“He was in a different position. Altogether.”

“Rich? Able to keep her in the style to which she would like to become accustomed?”

“There’s no need,” Warrender muttered, “to put it like that.”

“Poor Charles!” Richard said and then suddenly, “Did he know?”

Warrender turned a painful crimson. “No,” he said. “It was — it was all over by then.”

“Did he believe in the Dakers story?”

“I think,” Warrender said after a pause, “he believed everything Mary told him.”

“Poor Charles!” Richard repeated, and then turned on Alleyn. “He’s not going to be told? Not now! It’d kill him. There’s no need — is there?”