Ngaio Marsh - Spinsters in Jeopardy

From inside the door his view of Mr. Oberon’s room was in part blocked by the back of an enormous looking-glass screwed to the floor at an angle of about 45 degrees to the outside wall. For the moment he didn’t move beyond this barrier, but from where he stood, looked at the left-hand end of the room. It was occupied by a sort of altar hung with a stiffly embroidered cloth and garnished with a number of objects: a pentacle in silver, a triskelion in bronze and a large crystal affair resembling a sunburst. Beside the altar was a door, leading, he decided, into the windowless room he had noted on the plan.

He moved forward with the intention of walking round the looking-glass into the far part of the room.

“Bring me the prayer wheel,” said a voice beyond the glass. It fetched Alleyn up with the jolt of a punch over the heart. He looked at the door. If the glass had hidden him on his entrance it would mask his exit. He moved towards the door.

“I am at the Third Portal of the Outer and must not uncover my eyes. Do not speak. Bring me the prayer wheel. Put it before me.”

Alleyn walked forward.

There, on the other side of the looking-glass facing it and seated on the floor, was Mr. Oberon, stark naked, with the palms of his hands pressed to his eyes. Beyond him was a long window masked by a dyed silk blind, almost transparent, with the design of the sun upon it.

Alleyn took the prayer wheel from the wall. It was an elaborate affair, heavily carved, with many cylinders. He set it before Oberon.

He turned and had reached the door when somebody knocked peremptorily on it. Alleyn stepped back as it was flung open. It actually struck his shoulder. He heard someone go swiftly past and into the room.

Baradi’s voice said: “Where are you? Oh, there you are! See here, I’ve got to talk to you.”

He must be behind the glass. Alleyn slipped round the door and darted out. As he ran lightly up the stairs he heard Baradi shut the door.

There was nobody on the top landing. He walked back into the library, having been away from it for five and a half minutes.

He took out his notebook and made a very rough sketch of Mr. Oberon’s room, taking particular pains to mark the position of the prayer wheel on the wall. Then he set about memorizing as much of its detail as he had been able to take in. He was still at this employment when the latch turned in the door.

Alleyn pulled out from the nearest shelf a copy of Mr. Montague Summer’s major work on witchcraft. He was apparently absorbed in it when a woman came into the library.

He looked up from the book and knew that as far as preserving his anonymity was concerned, he was irrevocably sunk.

“If it’s not Roderick Alleyn!” said Annabella Wells.

i

It was some years ago, in a transatlantic steamer, that Alleyn had met Annabella Wells: the focal point of shipboard gossip to which she had seemed to be perfectly indifferent. She had watched him with undisguised concentration for four hours and had then sent her secretary with an invitation for drinks. She herself drank pretty heavily and, he thought, was probably a drug addict. He had found her an embarrassment and was glad when she suddenly dropped him. Since then she had turned up from time to time as an onlooker at criminal trials where he appeared for the police. She was, she told him, passionately interested in criminology.

In the English theatre her brilliance had been dimmed by her outrageous eccentricities, but in Paris, particularly in the motion-picture studios, she was still one of the great ones. She retained a ravaged sort of beauty and an individuality which would be arresting when the last of her good looks had been rasped away. A formidable woman, and an enchantress still.

She gave him her hand and the inverted and agonized smile for which she was famous. “They said you were a big-game hunter,” she said. “I couldn’t wait.”

“It was nice of them to get that impression.”

“An accurate one, after all. Are you on the prowl down here? After some master-felon?”

“I’m on a holiday with my wife and small boy.”

“Ah, yes! The beautiful woman who paints famous pictures. I am told by Baradi and Glande that she is beautiful. There is no need to look angry, is there?”

“Did I look angry?”

“You looked as if you were trying not to show a certain uxorious irritation.”

“Did I, indeed?” said Alleyn.

“Baradi is a bit lush. I will allow and must admit that he’s a bit lush. Have you seen Oberon?”

“For a few moments.”

“What did you think of him ?”

“Isn’t he your host?”

“Honestly,” she said, “you’re not true. Much more fabulous, in your way, than Oberon.”

“I’m interested in what I have been told of his philosophy.”

“So they said. What sort of interest?”

“Personal and academic.”

“My interest is personal and unacademic.” She opened her cigarette case. Alleyn glanced at the contents. “I see,” he said, “that it would be useless to offer you a Capstan.”

“Will you have one of these? They’re Egyptian. The red won’t come off on your lips.”

“Thank you. They would be wasted on me.” He lit her cigarette. “I wonder,” he said, “if I could persuade you to say nothing about my job.”

“Darling,” she rejoined — she called everyone, “darling” —“you could persuade me to do anything. My trouble was, you wouldn’t try. Why do you look at me like that?”

“I was wondering if any dependence could be placed on a heroin addict. Is it heroin?”

“It is. I get it,” said Miss Wells, “from America.”

“How very tragic.”

“Tragic?”

“You weren’t taking heroin when you played Hedda Gabler at the Unicorn in ’42. Could you give a performance like that now?”

“ Yes ,” she said vehemently.

“But what a pity you don’t!”

“My last film is the best thing I’ve ever done. Everyone says so.” She looked at him with hatred. “I can still do it,” she said.

“On your good days, perhaps. The studio is less exacting than the theatre. Will the cameras wait when the gallery would boo? I couldn’t know less about it.”

She walked up to him and struck him across the face with the back of her hand.

“You have deteriorated,” said Alleyn.

“Are you mad? What are you up to? Why are you here?”

“I brought a woman who may be dying to your Dr. Baradi. All I want is to go away as I came in — a complete nonentity.”

“And you think that by insulting me you’ll persuade me to oblige you.”

“I think you’ve already talked to your friends about me and that they’ve sent you here to find out if you were right.”

“You’re a very conceited man. Why should I talk about you?”

“Because,” Alleyn said, “you’re afraid.”

“Of you?”

“Specifically. Of me.”

“You idiot,” she said. “Coming here with a dying spinster and an arty-crafty wife and a dreary little boy! For God’s sake, get out and get on with your holiday.”

“I should like it above all things.”

“Why don’t you want them to know who you are?”

“It would quite spoil my holiday.”

“Which might mean anything.”

“It might.”

“Why do you say I’m afraid?”

“You’re shaking. That may be a carry-over from alcohol or heroin, or both, but I don’t think it is. You’re behaving like a frightened woman. You were in a blue funk when you hit me.”

“You’re saying detestable, unforgivable things to me.”

“Have I said anything that is untrue?”

“My life’s my own. I’ve a right to do what I like with it.”