Ngaio Marsh - False Scent

Gantry said, “In my opinion, Monty, we should take legal advice.”

Marchant looked thoughtfully at him.

“You are at liberty to do so,” Alleyn said. “You are also at liberty to refuse to answer to any or all questions until the arrival of your solicitor. Suppose you hear the questions and then decide.”

Marchant examined his hands, lifted his gaze to Alleyn’s face and said, “What are they?”

There was a restless movement among the others.

“First. What exactly was Mrs. Templeton’s, or perhaps in this connection I should say Miss Bellamy’s, position in the firm of Marchant & Company?”

Marchant raised his eyebrows. “A leading and distinguished artist who played exclusively for our management.”

“Any business connection other than that?”

“Certainly,” he said at once. “She had a controlling interest.”

“ Monty !” Bertie cried out.

“Dear boy, an examination of our shareholders list would give it.”

“Has she held this position for some time?”

“Since 1956. Before that it was vested in her husband, but he transferred his holdings to her in that year.”

“I had no idea he had financial interests in the theatre world.”

“These were his only ones, I believe. After the war we were in considerable difficulties. Like many other managements we were threatened with a complete collapse. You may say that he saved us.”

“In taking this action was he influenced by his wife’s connections with the Management?”

“She brought the thing to his notice, but fundamentally I should say he believed in the prospect of our recovery and expansion. In the event he proved to be fully justified.”

“Why did he transfer his share to her, do you know?”

“I don’t know, but I can conjecture. His health is precarious. He’s — he was — a devoted husband. He may have been thinking of death duties.”

“Yes, I see.”

Marchant said, “It’s so warm in here,” and unbuttoned his overcoat. Fox helped him out of it. He sat down, very elegantly and crossed his legs. The others watched him anxiously.

The door opened and Dr. Harkness came in. He nodded at Alleyn and said, “Better, but he’s had as much as he can take.”

“Anyone with him?”

“The old nurse. He’ll settle down now. No more visits, mind.”

“Right.”

Dr. Harkness sat heavily on the sofa and Alleyn turned again to Marchant.

“Holding, as you say, a controlling interest,” he said, “she must have been a power to reckon with, as far as other employees of the Management were concerned.”

The lids drooped a little over Marchant’s very pale eyes. “I really don’t think I follow you,” he said.

“She was, everyone agrees, a temperamental woman. For instance, this afternoon, we are told, she cut up very rough indeed. In the conservatory.”

The heightened tension of his audience could scarcely have been more apparent if they’d begun to twang like bow-strings, but none of them spoke.

“She would throw a temperament,” Marchant said coolly, “if she felt the occasion for it.”

“And she felt the occasion in this instance?”

“Quite so.”

“Suppose, for the sake of argument, she had pressed for the severance of some long-standing connection with your management? Would she have carried her point?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow that either.”

“I’ll put it brutally. If she’d demanded that you sign no more contracts with, say, Mr. Gantry or Mr. Saracen or Miss Cavendish, would you have had to toe the line?”

“I would have talked softly and expected her to calm down.”

“But if she’d stuck to it?” Alleyn waited for a moment and then took his risk. “Come,” he said. “She did issue an ultimatum this afternoon.”

Saracen scrambled to his feet. “There!” he shouted. “What did I tell you! Somebody’s blown the beastly gaff and now we’re to suffer for it. I said we should talk first, ourselves, and be frank and forthcoming and see how right I was!”

Gantry said, “For God’s sake hold your tongue, Bertie.”

“What do we get for holding our tongues’?” He pointed to Warrender. “We get an outsider giving the whole thing away with both hands. I bet you, Timmy. I bet you anything you like.”

“Utter balderdash!” Warrender exclaimed. “I don’t know what you think you’re talking about, Saracen.”

“Oh pooh! You’ve told the Inspector or Commander or Great Panjandrum or whatever he is. You’ve told him.”

“On the contrary,” Gantry said, “you’ve told him yourself. You fool , Bertie.”

Pinky Cavendish, in what seemed to be an agony of exasperation, cried out, “Oh why , for God’s sake, can’t we all admit we’re no good at this sort of hedging! I can! Freely and without prejudice to the rest of you, if that’s what you’re all afraid of. And what’s more, I’m going to. Look here, Mr. Alleyn, this is what happened to me in the conservatory. Mary accused me of conspiring against her and told Monty it was either her or me as far as the Management was concerned. Just that. And if it really came to the point I can assure you it’d be her and not me. You know, Monty, and we all know, that with her name and star-ranking, Mary was worth a damn sight more than me at the box-office and in the firm. All right! This very morning you’d handed me my first real opportunity with the Management. She was well able, if she felt like it, to cook my goose. But I’m no more capable of murdering her than I am of taking her place with her own particular public. And when you hear an actress admit that kind of thing,” Pinky added, turning to Alleyn, “you can bet your bottom dollar she’s talking turkey.”

Alleyn said, “Produce this sort of integrity on the stage, Miss Cavendish, and nobody will be able to cook your goose for you.” He looked round at Pinky’s deeply perturbed audience, “Has anybody got anything to add to this?” he added.

After a pause, Richard said, “Only that I’d like to endorse what Pinky said and to add that, as you and everybody else know, I was just as deeply involved as she. More so.”

“Dicky darling!” Pinky said warmly. “No! Where you are now! Offer a comedy on the open market and watch the managements bay like ravenous wolves.”

“Without Mary?” Marchant asked of nobody in particular.

“It’s quite true,” Richard said, “that I wrote specifically for Mary.”

“Not always. And no reason,” Gantry intervened, “why you shouldn’t write now for somebody else.” Once again he bestowed his most disarming smile on Anelida.

“Why not indeed!” Pinky cried warmly and laid her hand on Anelida’s.

“Ah!” Richard said, putting his arm about her. “That’s another story. Isn’t it, darling?”

Wave after wave of unconsidered gratitude flowed through Anelida. “These are my people,” she thought. “I’m in with them for the rest of my life.”

“The fact remains, however,” Gantry was saying to Alleyn, “that Bertie, Pinky, and Richard all stood to lose by Mary’s death. A point you might care to remember.”

“Oh lawks!” Bertie said. “ Aren’t we all suddenly generous and noble-minded! Everybody loves everybody! Safety in numbers, or so they say. Or do they?”

“In this instance,” Alleyn said, “they well might.” He turned to Marchant. “Would you agree that, with the exception of her husband, yourself and Colonel Warrender, Miss Bellamy issued some kind of ultimatum against each member of the group in the conservatory?”

“Would I?” Marchant said easily. “Well, yes. I think I would.”

“To the effect that it was either they or she and you could take your choice?”