Ngaio Marsh - Final Curtain

Fox clapped his hand over the receiver. “He says your secretary rang up their office half an hour ago and asked them to repeat the formula for embalming. His partner, Mr. Loame, answered. He wants to know if it was all right.”

“Did Loame give the formula?”

“Yes.”

“Bloody fool,” Alleyn said violently. “Tell him it’s all wrong and ring off.”

“I’ll let Mr. Alleyn know,” said Fox, and hung up the receiver. Alleyn reached for it and pulled the telephone towards him.

“Ancreton, 2A,” he said. “Priority. Quick as you can.” And while he waited: “We may want a car at once, Fox. Ring down, will you? We’ll take Thompson with us. And we’ll need a search warrant.” Fox went into the next room and telephoned. When he returned Alleyn was speaking. “Hallo. May I speak to Miss Orrincourt?… Out?… When will she be in?… I see. Get me Miss Able, Barker, will you?… It’s Scotland Yard here.” He looked round at Fox. “We’ll be going,” he said. “She came up to London last night and is expected back for lunch. Damn! Why the hell doesn’t the Home Office come to light with that report? We need it now, and badly. What’s the time?”

“Ten to twelve, sir.”

“Her train gets in at twelve. We haven’t an earthly… Hallo! Hallo! Is that you, Miss Able?… Alleyn here. Don’t answer anything but yes or no, please. I want you to do something that is urgent and important. Miss Orrincourt is returning by the train that arrives at midday. Please find out if any one has left to meet her. If not, make some excuse for going yourself in the pony-cart. If it’s too late for that, meet it when it arrives at the house. Take Miss Orrincourt into your part of the house and keep her there. Tell her I said so and take no refusal. It’s urgent. She’s not to go into the other part of the house. Got that?… Sure?… Right. Splendid. Goodbye.”

He rang off, and found Fox waiting with his overcoat and hat. “Wait a bit,” he said. “That’s not good enough.” And turned back to the telephone. “Get me Camber Cross Police Station. They’re the nearest to Ancreton, aren’t they, Fox?”

“Three miles. The local P.C. lives in Ancreton parish, though. On duty last night.”

“That’s the chap, Bream… Hallo!.. Chief Inspector Alleyn, Scotland Yard. Is your chap Bream in the station?… Can you find him?… Good! The Ancreton pub. I’d be much obliged if you’d ring through. Tell him to go at once to Ancreton Halt. A Miss Orrincourt will get off the midday train. She’ll be met from the Manor House. He’s to let the trap go away without her, take her to the pub, and wait there for me. Right! Thanks.”

“Will he make it?” Fox asked.

“He has his dinner at the pub and he’s got a bike. It’s no more than a mile and a half. Here we go, Fox. If, in the ripeness of time, Mr. Loame is embalmed by his own firm, I hope they make a mess of him. What precisely did this bogus secretary say?”

“Just that you’d told him to get a confirmation of the formula. It was a toll-call, but, of course, Loame thought you were back at Ancreton.”

“And so he tells poor old Ancred’s killer that there was no arsenic used in the embalming and blows our smoke-screen to hell. As Miss O. would say, what a pal! Where’s my bag? Come on.”

But as they reached the door the telephone rang again.

“I’ll go,” Alleyn said. “With any luck it’s Curtis.”

It was Dr. Curtis. “I don’t know whether you’ll like this,” he said. “It’s the Home Office report on the cat, the medicine and the deceased. First analysis completed. No arsenic anywhere.”

“Good!” said Alleyn. “Now tell them to try for thallium acetate, and ring me at Ancreton when they’ve found it.”

ii

They were to encounter yet another interruption. As they went out to the waiting car, they found Thomas, very white and pinched, on the bottom step.

“Oh, hallo,” he said. “I was coming to see you. I want to see you awfully.”

“Important?” Alleyn said.

“To me,” Thomas rejoined with the air of innocence, “it’s as important as anything. You see, I came in by the morning train on purpose. I felt I had to. I’m going back this evening.”

“We’re on our way to Ancreton now.”

“Really? Then I suppose you wouldn’t…? Or shouldn’t one suggest it?”

“We can take you with us. Certainly,” said Alleyn after a fractional pause.

“Isn’t that lucky?” said Thomas wistfully and got into the back seat with them. Detective-Sergeant Thompson was already seated by the driver. They drove away in a silence lasting so long that Alleyn began to wonder if Thomas, after all, had nothing to say. At last, however, he plunged into conversation with an abruptness that startled his hearers.

“First of all,” said Thomas loudly, “I want to apologize for my behaviour last night. Fainting! Well! I thought I left that kind of thing to Pauline. Everybody was so nice, too. The doctors and you,” he said, smiling wanly at Fox, “driving me home and everything. I couldn’t be more sorry.”

“Very understandable, I’m sure,” said Fox comfortably. “You’d had a nasty shock.”

“Well, I had. Frightful, really. And the worst of it is, you know, I can’t shake it off. When I did go to sleep it was so beastly. The dreams. And this morning with the family asking questions.”

“You said nothing, of course,” said Alleyn.

“You’d asked me not to, so I didn’t, but they took it awfully badly. Cedric was quite furious, and Pauline said I was siding against the family. The point is, Alleyn, I honestly don’t think I can stand any more. It’s unlike me,” said Thomas. “I must have a temperament after all. Fancy!”

“What exactly do you want to see us about?”

“I want to know. It’s the uncertainty. I want to know why Papa’s hair had fallen out. I want to know if he was poisoned and if you think Sonia did it. I’m quite discreet, really, and if you tell me I’ll give you my solemn word of honour not to say anything. Not even to Caroline Able, though I dare say she could explain why I feel so peculiar. I want to know.”

“Everything from the beginning?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind. Everything.”

“That’s a tall order. We don’t know everything. We’re trying, very laboriously, to piece things together, and we’ve got, I think, almost the whole pattern. We believe your father was poisoned.”

Thomas rubbed the palms of his hands across the back of the driver’s seat. “Are you certain? That’s horrible.”

“The bell-push in his room had been manipulated in such a way that it wouldn’t ring. One of the wires had been released. The bell-push hung by the other wire and when he grasped it the wooden end came away in his hand. We started from there.”

“That seems a simple little thing.”

“There are lots of more complicated things. Your father made two Wills, and signed neither of them until the day of his Birthday party. The first he signed, as I think he told you, before the dinner. The second and valid one he signed late that night. We believe that Miss Orrincourt and your nephew Cedric were the only two people, apart from his solicitor, who knew of this action. She benefited greatly by the valid Will. He lost heavily.”

“Then why bring him into the picture?” Thomas asked instantly.

“He won’t stay out. He hovers. For one thing, he and Miss Orrincourt planned all the practical jokes.”

“Goodness! But Papa’s death wasn’t a practical joke. Or was it?”

“Indirectly, it’s just possible that it was caused by one. The final practical joke, the flying cow on the picture, probably caused Sir Henry to fix on the second draft.”